Extreme object

Crab Pulsar

Crab Pulsar is a pulsar 6 200 light-years away, turning 29.9 times a second.

What was left when a star seen exploding in 1054 collapsed: a city-sized star spinning thirty times a second, inside the Crab Nebula (M1).

Key facts

Kind

Pulsar

Distance

6 200 light-years

Turns once every

33.39 milliseconds

See it from here

Too faint for the eye; a telescope, or a long photograph, shows it.

How the map draws it

Drawn as a ring at its measured distance; a black hole has no shape to draw and a pulsar is far too small — the kind of thing, not this exact one · its blink is drawn 100 times slower than it turns, so that an eye can follow it.