Extreme object

Vela Pulsar

Vela Pulsar is a pulsar 959 light-years away, turning 11.2 times a second.

The brightest pulsar in the gamma-ray sky, eleven times a second, from a supernova about eleven thousand years ago.

Key facts

Kind

Pulsar

Distance

959 light-years

Turns once every

89.33 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 10 times slower than it turns, so that an eye can follow it.