Quiz on 🌠 “Pulsars” — rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit beams of radiation.

A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation from its magnetic poles. These beams are observed as pulses of radiation when they sweep past the Earth, giving pulsars their characteristic regular blinking pattern. Pulsars are formed from the collapsed cores of massive stars after a supernova explosion. They rotate at incredibly high speeds, with some spinning hundreds of times per second. The first pulsar was discovered in 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Pulsars serve as precise cosmic clocks, helping astronomers study gravitational waves, the interstellar medium, and the behavior of matter under extreme conditions. Certain pulsars, called millisecond pulsars, rotate extremely rapidly due to accretion of matter from a companion star.