Extreme object

PSR B1919+21

PSR B1919+21 is a pulsar somewhere between 300 and 3 600 light-years away, turning once every 1.34 seconds.

The first pulsar ever found, by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967. Its tick was so regular it was nicknamed LGM-1: Little Green Men.

Key facts

Kind

Pulsar

Distance

1 950 light-years

Turns once every

1.34 seconds

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 at the rate it turns.