Extreme object

PSR J0348+0432

PSR J0348+0432 is a pulsar 6 800 light-years away, weighing 2.01 Suns, turning 25.6 times a second.

Two Suns in a ball twenty kilometres across, circling a white dwarf every two and a half hours; among the heaviest neutron stars ever weighed.

Key facts

Kind

Pulsar

Distance

6 800 light-years

Mass

2.01 Suns

Turns once every

39.12 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.