Chandra Movie of Vela Pulsar: Neutron Star Action

The Vela pulsar, a neutron star that was formed when a massive star collapsed. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Toronto/M.Durant et al; Optical: DSS/Davide De Martin).

This movie from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a fast moving jet of particles produced by a rapidly rotating neutron star, and may provide new insight into the nature of some of the densest matter in the universe.

The star of this movie is the Vela pulsar, a neutron star that was formed when a massive star collapsed.

The Vela pulsar is about 1,000 light years from Earth, spansis about 12 miles in diameter, and makes over 11 complete rotations every second, faster than a helicopter rotor.

As the pulsar whips around, it spews out a jet of charged particles that race out along the pulsar’s rotation axis at about 70% of the speed of light.

In this still image from the movie, the location of the pulsar and the 0.7-light-year-long jet are labeled.

The Chandra data shown in the movie, containing 8 images obtained between June and September 2010, suggest that the pulsar may be slowly wobbling, or precessing, as it spins.

"It's like having an unsecured fire hose and a flow of water at high pressure," said co-author George Pavlov, principal investigator of the Chandra proposal at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. "All you need is a small bend in the hose and violent motion can result."

"We think the Vela pulsar is like a rotating garden sprinkler, except with the water blasting out at over half the speed of light," said Martin Durant of the University of Toronto in Canada, who is the first author of the paper describing these results.