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Neutron Stars/X-ray Binaries

Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula
(NASA/CXC/SAO)

If the neutron star is rotating rapidly, as most young neutron stars are, the strong magnetic fields combined with rapid rotation create an awesome generator that can produce electric potential differences of quadrillions of volts. Such voltages, which are 30 million times greater than those of lightning bolts, create deadly blizzards of high-energy particles.

Rotation-powered pulsars

These high-energy particles produce beams of radiation from radio through gamma-ray energies. Like a rotating lighthouse beam, the radiation can be observed as a pulsing source of radiation, or pulsar. Pulsars were first observed by radio astronomers in 1967. There are now approximately 1000 known pulsars. The pulsar in the Crab Nebula, one of the youngest and most energetic pulsars known, has been observed to pulse in almost every wavelengthradio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray. A few dozen pulsars are observed to pulse in X-rays and six are seen to pulse in gamma-rays.


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