Pulsars are rotating neutron stars [
http://astro.uchica…], born in the violent crucibles of supernova explosions [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Like cosmic lighthouses [
http://imagine.gsfc…], beams of radiation from surface hotspots sweep past our viewpoint creating pulses which reveal the rotation rates of these incredibly dense stellar corpses [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The most famous pulsar of all is found in the nearby supernova remnant, the Crab Nebula [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The Crab's young pulsar is fast. Rotating at 33 times a second, its radiation energizes the surrounding [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] gaseous stellar debris [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. But using archival observations from orbiting X-ray telescopes [
http://xxx.lanl.gov…], astronomers have recently identified another "Crab-like" pulsar that is even faster. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], X-ray pulses from this newly discovered pulsar, in the supernova remnant N157B [
http://www.astro.nw…], indicate an even faster rotation rate - 62 times a second - making it the fastest known pulsar associated with a supernova remnant [
http://www.skypub.c…]. This contoured, false color X-ray image of a portion of the LMC [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] shows the location of N157B along with the core of the nearby hot star cluster R136 [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], and the site of another Crab-like pulsar in SNR 0540-69.3 (rotating a mere 20 times a second). The image is about 1,500 light-years across.
Explanation
Pulsars are rotating neutron stars [
http://astro.uchica…], born in the violent crucibles of supernova explosions [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Like cosmic lighthouses [
http://imagine.gsfc…], beams of radiation from surface hotspots sweep past our viewpoint creating pulses which reveal the rotation rates of these incredibly dense stellar corpses [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The most famous pulsar of all is found in the nearby supernova remnant, the Crab Nebula [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. The Crab's young pulsar is fast. Rotating at 33 times a second, its radiation energizes the surrounding [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] gaseous stellar debris [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. But using archival observations from orbiting X-ray telescopes [
http://xxx.lanl.gov…], astronomers have recently identified another "Crab-like" pulsar that is even faster. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], X-ray pulses from this newly discovered pulsar, in the supernova remnant N157B [
http://www.astro.nw…], indicate an even faster rotation rate - 62 times a second - making it the fastest known pulsar associated with a supernova remnant [
http://www.skypub.c…]. This contoured, false color X-ray image of a portion of the LMC [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] shows the location of N157B along with the core of the nearby hot star cluster R136 [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…], and the site of another Crab-like pulsar in SNR 0540-69.3 (rotating a mere 20 times a second). The image is about 1,500 light-years across.
Explanation
