Pulsar
PSR J1356+0230
Millisecond pulsar · binary system
A millisecond pulsar spinning 354 times per second: an old neutron star spun up again (“recycled”) by matter transferred from a companion. It shares a 3.41 h orbit with a very-low-mass companion. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Period | 2.827 ms (354 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 7.8×10⁻²¹ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 5.7 billion years |
| Magnetic field | 1.5×10⁸ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 1.4×10³⁴ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 17.8 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 1,819 pc (5.9 thousand ly) |
| Companion | very-low-mass companion (estimated), ~0.012 M☉ |
| Orbital period | 3.41 h |
| Discovery | 2026 · meerkat_trapum |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 13h 56m 37.1s |
| Declination (J2000) | +2° 30′ 31″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 87° S. It stands highest at midnight in April, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 5,933 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 105 million years.