The Vela Pulsar

If you could see in X-rays, one of the brightest things you’d see in the night sky is the Vela pulsar. It was formed when a huge star’s core collapsed about 12,000 years ago.

The outer parts of the star shot off into space. Its core collapsed into a neutron star about twice the mass of our Sun—but just 20 kilometers in diameter! Today it’s spinning around 11.195 times every second. As it whips around, it spews out jets of charged particles moving at about 70% of the speed of light. Thes...