Well, they may be small, but they are also hot. We can hunt for hot neutron stars by looking for X-ray sources. Some neutron stars, however, also emit electromagnetic radiation by another mechanism. Read on to learn about pulsars . Pulsars are neutron stars which emit beams of radiation.
Some neutron stars appear to emit regular pulses of electromagnetic radiation.
When we are able to detect these pulses here on Earth, we refer to the neutron star which emits them as a pulsar . The first pulsar discovery occurred in 1967, when astronomers in England, while making a survey of the sky at radio wavelengths, discovered pulses coming from one particular position. The pulses happened at regular intervals of 1.33730119 seconds. Perhaps, astronomers thought, a pulse so regular in its timing was an artificial beacon. Unfortunately for science fiction fans everywhere, pulsars turned out to be rotating neutron stars, not artifacts of extraterrestrial intelligence.