Pulsar
PSR B1911-04 (J1913-0440)
Radio pulsar
A neutron star spinning once every 0.826 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 | 825.9 ms |
| Period derivative | 4.1×10⁻¹⁵ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 3.2 million years |
| Magnetic field | 1.9×10¹² G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 2.9×10³² erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 89.4 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 4,041 pc (13.2 thousand ly) |
| Discovery | 1969 · mol1, gb2, jb1, lotaas, misc, mol2, pks70, pkssw |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 19h 13m 54.2s |
| Declination (J2000) | −4° 40′ 48″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 85° 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 13 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 234 million years.