Pulsar
PSR B1907-03 (J1910-0309)
Radio pulsar
A neutron star spinning once every 0.505 seconds; the beams from its magnetic poles sweep across Earth on every turn. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Aquila |
| Period | 504.6 ms |
| Period derivative | 2.2×10⁻¹⁵ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 3.7 million years |
| Magnetic field | 1.1×10¹² G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 6.7×10³² erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 205.4 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 14,420 pc (47.0 thousand ly) |
| Discovery | 1978 · mol2, gb3, lotaas, misc, pks70, pksmb, pkssw |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 19h 10m 29.7s |
| Declination (J2000) | −3° 09′ 54″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 87° N. It stands highest at midnight in July, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 47 thousand years ago. At that time Homo sapiens was spreading out of Africa; there was no farming yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 834 million years.