Crab pulsar

The crab pulsar

The crab pulsar (PSR B0531 +21) is a 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 Univerity 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.

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 tempreture can get to 3 x 10^8 Kelvin, the suns tempreture 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.