NASA shared a pretty picture of pulsar SXP 1062 on the official Instagram account of Chandra X-ray Observatory. The stunning snapshot and the interesting information posted along with it have fascinated netizens. Learning more about what pulsars are and why this one is so unique may leave you amused too.
"Pulsars are roughly 20 kilometers in diameter. The bright source on the right-hand side of this image is pulsar SXP 1062 and it rotates surprisingly slowly — about once every 18 minutes. What's the fastest pulsar known? That's PSR J1748-2446ad and it rotates 716 times per second!" reads the text which was shared alongside the image.
This young pulsar, which is between 10,000 and 40,000 years old, is located in a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way, states a blog post shared by NASA.
Astronomers are super interested in the pulsar SXP 1062 because of its unusually slow spinning speed, especially since it is very young from an astronomical perspective. "Assuming that it was born with rapid spin, it is a mystery why SXP 1062 has been able to slow down by so much, so quickly," reads a line in NASA's blog post.
In this photograph, the unique pulsar is the bright white source on the right side. A star-forming region is shown on the left side of the image. Check out this scene from space below:
{{/usCountry}}In this photograph, the unique pulsar is the bright white source on the right side. A star-forming region is shown on the left side of the image. Check out this scene from space below:
{{/usCountry}}Since being shared on the photo and video sharing platform, this post has accumulated nearly 17,000 likes and has also amassed many comments. Here's what Instagram users had to say about the post. One person said, "Wow".
Another individual wrote, "'I'm amazed". “Fascinating information,” read one comment under the share.
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