page_title: Pulsar
section_title: Significant pulsars
hierarchical_section_title: Pulsar / Significant pulsars
caption_attribution_description: English: This all-sky map shows the positions and names of 16 new pulsars (yellow) and eight millisecond pulsars (magenta) studied using Fermi's LAT. The famous Vela, Crab, and Geminga pulsars (right) are the brightest ones Fermi sees. The pulsars Taz, Eel, and Rabbit have taken the nicknames of nebulae they are now known to power. The Gamma Cygni pulsar resides within a supernova remnant of the same name.
context_page_description: A pulsar is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Earth, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission. Neutron stars are very dense, and have short, regular rotational periods. This produces a very precise interval between pulses that ranges from milliseconds to seconds for an individual pulsar. Pulsars are one of the candidates for the source of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.
  The periods of pulsars make them very useful tools for astronomers. Observations of a pulsar in a binary neutron star system were used to indirectly confirm the existence of gravitational radiation. The first extrasolar planets were discovered around a pulsar, PSR B1257+12. In 1983, certain types of pulsars exceeded atomic clocks in their accuracy in keeping time.
context_section_description: The pulsars listed here were either the first discovered of its type, or represent an extreme of some type among the known pulsar population, such as having the shortest measured period.
  The first radio pulsar "CP 1919" (now known as PSR B1919+21), with a pulse period of 1.337 seconds and a pulse width of 0.04-second, was discovered in 1967.
  The first binary pulsar, PSR 1913+16, whose orbit is decaying at the exact rate predicted due to the emission of gravitational radiation by general relativity
  The brightest radio pulsar, the Vela Pulsar.
  The first millisecond pulsar, PSR B1937+21
  The brightest millisecond pulsar, PSR J0437-4715
  The first X-ray pulsar, Cen X-3
  The first accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar, SAX J1808.4-3658
  The first pulsar with planets, PSR B1257+12
  The first pulsar observed to have been affected by asteroids: PSR J0738-4042
  The first double pulsar binary system, PSR J0737−3039
  The shortest period pulsar, PSR J1748-2446ad, with a period of ~0.0014 seconds or ~1.4 milliseconds (716 times a second).
  The longest period pulsar, at 118.2 seconds, as well as the only known example of a white dwarf pulsar, AR Scorpii.
  The longest period neutron star pulsar, PSR J0250+5854, with a period of 23.5 seconds.
  The pulsar with the most stable period, PSR J0437-4715
  The first millisecond pulsar with 2 stellar mass companions, PSR J0337+1715
  PSR J1841-0500, stopped pulsing for 580 days. One of only two pulsars known to have stopped pulsing for more than a few minutes.
  PSR B1931+24, has a cycle. It pulses for about a week and stops pulsing for about a month. One of only two pulsars known to have stopped pulsing for more than a few minutes.
  PSR J1903+0327, a ~2.15 ms pulsar discovered to be in a highly eccentric binary star system with a Sun-like star.
  PSR J2007+2722, a 40.8-hertz 'recycled' isolated pulsar was the first pulsar found by volunteers on data taken in February 2007 and analyzed by distributed computing project Einstein@Home.
  PSR J1311–3430, the first millisecond pulsar discovered via gamma-ray pulsations and part of a binary system with the shortest orbital period.
caption: Gamma-ray pulsars detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
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