Most astronomers had not previously believed this class of star, called a pulsar, could form with such a rapid spin. To put it in perspective, this pulsar is spinning more than 6 million times as rapidly as the Earth. The pulsar was found by Dr. Marshall and his colleagues Drs.
Pulsars get their name because their emissions appear to turn on and off, or pulse, very rapidly.
Astronomers believe the stars channel some of their energy into a beam of radiation, and as the star spins the beam sweeps through space like a lighthouse beacon. By counting how rapidly the beam flashes at Earth, scientists can calculate a pulsar's rate of spin. When a star explodes as a supernova it leaves behind a lingering core about 15 miles across but packed with as much matter as in Earth's Sun. Since the Crab pulsar's discovery in 1968, astronomers have spotted pulsars spinning as fast as hundreds of times per second. Its discovery confirms a prediction published by Gotthelf and Dr. Q. Daniel Wang of Northwestern University.