Pulsar
PSR J0537-6910
Millisecond pulsar · in the remnant N157B
A millisecond pulsar spinning 62 times per second: an old neutron star spun up again (“recycled”) by matter transferred from a companion. Its radio beams do not sweep across Earth; its pulses are seen only in X-rays or gamma rays. Not in the Milky Way but in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Host galaxy | Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Period | 16.122 ms (62 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 5.2×10⁻¹⁴ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 4,930 years |
| Magnetic field | 9.3×10¹¹ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 4.9×10³⁸ erg/s |
| Distance | 49,700 pc (162.1 thousand ly) |
| Location | in the remnant N157B |
| Discovery | 1998 · misc |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 5h 37m 47.4s |
| Declination (J2000) | −69° 10′ 20″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 21° N. South of latitude 21° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in December, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 162 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 2.9 billion years.