A rapidly spinning pulsar, the Crab pulsar, lives at the Crab nebula center. The Crab pulsar rotates some 30 times per second. Unlike the Crab pulsar, which is clearly linked by birth to the Crab nebula, not all young pulsars can be associated with certainty to a specific nebula, Professor Kaspi said. Even if a pulsar is in the vicinity of a nebulous supernova remnant, its birthplace may not have been the remnant's center. When pulsars are born, they sometimes shoot off at a tremendously high velocity, so they may be propelled far from the site of their birth.
Pulsars are among the fastest objects in the galaxy.
In fact, the highest speed pulsars are moving so fast that they will ultimately escape the confines of the Milky Way itself. Supernovae provide one of the most spectacular explosions in nature, equivalent to a 1,000-megaton bomb. A supernova occurs when fuel for fusion in the star's core runs out. The star can no longer create outward pressure to combat the inward gravitational pull of its great mass, so the core begins shrinking, growing hotter and denser in the process. When only iron is left in the core, it has nothing left to fuse and the star begins the final phase of gravitational collapse.