Zoom in on a spinning star corpse Description:Dr. Mark A. Garlick; Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto
About 7000 light years away, a pulsar is under the magnifying glass. This rapidly spinning stellar corpse is known as 鈥渢he black widow鈥, because it is slowly devouring its neighbouring star. And what鈥檚 left over has now let us zoom in to see the pulsar up close.
The black widow pulsar, officially called B1957+20, rotates more than 600 times a second, sweeping the sky with a beam of light as it turns. It orbits its partner, a brown dwarf…
Article amended on 15 June 2018
We corrected the rate of rotation of pulsar B1957+20
