Pulsar
PSR J1810+1744
Millisecond pulsar · binary system
A millisecond pulsar spinning 601 times per second: an old neutron star spun up again (“recycled”) by matter transferred from a companion. It shares a 3.56 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 | Hercules |
| Period | 1.663 ms (601 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 4.5×10⁻²¹ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 5.9 billion years |
| Magnetic field | 8.7×10⁷ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 3.8×10³⁴ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 39.7 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 2,357 pc (7.7 thousand ly) |
| Companion | very-low-mass companion (estimated), ~0.050 M☉ |
| Orbital period | 3.56 h |
| Eccentricity | 0.000047 |
| Discovery | 2011 · FermiAssoc, gbt350 |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 18h 10m 37.3s |
| Declination (J2000) | +17° 44′ 37″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 72° S. North of latitude 72° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in June, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 7,688 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 136 million years.