Crab pulsar

The Crab Pulsar (PSR B0531+21) is a young pulsar located in the heart of the Crab Nebula, 6,500 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Taurus. It was discovered in 1968 from the University of Arizona using the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. The pulsar is about 970 years old and when a massive star went type II supernova in 1054, it was seen in the day for 20 days and at night for nearly 2 years.

The pulsar is roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) in diameter and has a rotational period of about 33 milliseconds, that is, the pulsar "beams" perform about 30 revolutions per second.

In 2019, the Crab Nebula, and presumably therefore this pulsar, was observed to emit gamma rays in excess of 100 TeV, making it the first identified source of UHECRs. Additionally, as a result, they observed 24 photonlike events with E>100  TeV against 5.5 background events, which corresponds to a 5.6σ statistical significance. This is also the first detection of photons with E>100  TeV from an astrophysical source.

 Location 

 Right Ascension: 05h 34m 31.95s
 Declination: +22° 00' 52.2"
 Distance: 2 kpc (6,524 light years)

 Features 
The luminosity of the Crab Pulsar is 0.9 times that of the sun. It is about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in size and diameter. Its mass is 1.4 times that of the sun. Its tempreture is about 1.6 × 10^6 Kelvin and the core temperature can get to 3 x 10^8 Kelvin, the suns temperature is only 5,777 Kelvin so the pulsar is about 277 times hotter then the sun. Magnetic field is about 15,200,000,000,000 times stronger then Earths (7.6 x 10^12 Gauss) Completes a full rotation in 30.6 milliseconds (about 30.2 times every second).

 How it was formed 
The pulsar was formed in 1054 when a supergiant star went type II supernova about 970 years ago, this star was about 8-12 times the size of the sun. When the star exhausted its nuclear fuel, it could no longer hold itself, the supergiant stars core collapsed under gravity, compressing protons and electrons to form neutrons, then the star exploded into a type II supernova.

The star turns into a neutron star, this neutron star retained a significant amount of angular momentum from the original star, causing it to spin rapidly. The neutron star, now spinning at a high rate, emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its magnetic poles, these beams sweep across space like a cosmic lighthouse.

 Related pages 

 Vela Pulsar — another famous pulsar

 References 
Category:Variable stars