Pulsar
PSR J1910+0423
Radio pulsar · binary system
A neutron star spinning once every 0.093 seconds; the beams from its magnetic poles sweep across Earth on every turn. It shares a 886 days orbit with a helium white dwarf. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Aquila |
| Period | 93.241 ms (11 Hz) |
| Period derivative | 9.2×10⁻¹⁹ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 1.6 billion years |
| Magnetic field | 9.4×10⁹ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 4.5×10³¹ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 339.8 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 13,100 pc (42.7 thousand ly) |
| Companion | helium white dwarf (estimated), ~0.38 M☉ |
| Orbital period | 886 days |
| Eccentricity | 0.0026 |
| Discovery | 2026 · misc |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 19h 10m 10.2s |
| Declination (J2000) | +4° 23′ 01″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 86° S. 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 43 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 758 million years.