Extreme object

PSR J1748-2446ad

PSR J1748-2446ad is a pulsar 18 000 light-years away, turning 716 times a second.

The fastest-spinning pulsar known: 716 turns a second, its equator moving at a quarter of the speed of light, inside the globular cluster Terzan 5.

Key facts

Kind

Pulsar

Distance

18 000 light-years

Turns once every

1.40 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 1 000 times slower than it turns, so that an eye can follow it.