Pulsar
PSR J1641+8049
Millisecond pulsar · binary system
A millisecond pulsar spinning 495 times per second: an old neutron star spun up again (“recycled”) by matter transferred from a companion. It shares a 2.18 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 | Ursa Minor |
| Period | 2.021 ms (495 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 9.8×10⁻²¹ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 3.3 billion years |
| Magnetic field | 1.4×10⁸ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 4.7×10³⁴ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 31.1 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 4,600 pc (15.0 thousand ly) |
| Companion | very-low-mass companion (estimated), ~0.047 M☉ |
| Orbital period | 2.18 h |
| Eccentricity | 0.000021 |
| Discovery | 2014 · gbncc, FermiBlind |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 16h 41m 20.8s |
| Declination (J2000) | +80° 49′ 53″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 9° S. North of latitude 9° N it never sets.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 15 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 266 million years.