Pulsar
PSR B1951+32 (J1952+3252)
Radio pulsar · in the remnant CTB80
A neutron star spinning once every 0.040 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 | Cygnus |
| Period | 39.531 ms (25 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 5.8×10⁻¹⁵ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 107 thousand years |
| Magnetic field | 4.9×10¹¹ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 3.7×10³⁶ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 45.0 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 3,000 pc (9.8 thousand ly) |
| Location | in the remnant CTB80 |
| Discovery | 1988 · misc, FermiBlind, ar327, lotaas, fast_gpps |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 19h 52m 58.2s |
| Declination (J2000) | +32° 52′ 40″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 57° S. North of latitude 57° N it never sets. 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 9,785 years ago. At that time the first farming villages were being founded; there was no writing yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 174 million years.