NASA’s Fermi Satellite Clocks a ‘Cannonball’ Pulsar

  • Released Tuesday, March 19, 2019
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New radio observations combined with 10 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have revealed a runaway pulsar that escaped the blast wave of the supernova that formed it.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Music: "Forensic Scientist" from Killer Tracks

Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.

Complete transcript available.

See the bottom of the page for a version without on-screen text.

Astronomers using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have found a pulsar hurtling through space at nearly 2.5 million miles an hour -- so fast it could travel the distance between Earth and the Moon in just 6 minutes.

Pulsars are superdense, rapidly spinning neutron stars left behind when a massive star explodes. This one, dubbed PSR J0002+6216 (J0002 for short), sports a radio-emitting tail pointing directly toward the expanding debris from a recent supernova explosion.

Thanks to its narrow dart-like tail and a fortuitous viewing angle, astronomers can trace this pulsar straight back to its birthplace. Further study of J0002 will help us better understand how these explosions are able to ‘kick’ neutron stars to such high speed.

The pulsar is located about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was discovered in 2017 by a citizen-science project called Einstein@Home, which uses downtime on the computers of volunteers to process Fermi gamma-ray data and has identified 23 gamma-ray pulsars to date. J0002 spins 8.7 times a second, producing a pulse of gamma rays with each rotation, and has about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun.

The pulsar lies about 53 light-years from the center of a supernova remnant called CTB 1. Its rapid motion through interstellar gas results in shock waves that produce the tail of magnetic energy and accelerated particles detected at radio wavelengths using the VLA. The tail extends 13 light-years and clearly points back to the center of CTB 1.

Using Fermi data and a technique called pulsar timing, the team was able to measure how quickly and in what direction the pulsar was moving across our line of sight thanks to Fermi's 10-year data covering the entire sky.

J0002 is speeding through space five times faster than the average pulsar and faster than 99 percent of those with measured speeds. It will eventually escape our galaxy.

The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) along with infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon. Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) along with infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon.

Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

New observations using the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange) reveal the needle-like trail of pulsar J0002+6216 outside the shell of supernova remnant CTB 1. The pulsar escaped the remnant some 5,000 years ago. Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

New observations using the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange) reveal the needle-like trail of pulsar J0002+6216 outside the shell of supernova remnant CTB 1. The pulsar escaped the remnant some 5,000 years ago.

Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

CTB 1, seen here in a deep exposure that highlights visible light from hydrogen gas, is the expanding wreckage of a massive star that exploded some 10,000 years ago. The pulsar formed in the center of the collapsing star is moving so fast it has completely exited the faint shell.Credit: Copyright Scott Rosen, used with permission

CTB 1, seen here in a deep exposure that highlights visible light from hydrogen gas, is the expanding wreckage of a massive star that exploded some 10,000 years ago. The pulsar formed in the center of the collapsing star is moving so fast it has completely exited the faint shell.

Credit: Copyright Scott Rosen, used with permission

The CTB 1 supernova remnant is the large ashen shell in this image combining data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) with infrared observations (blue). The expanding shell is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon. Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

The CTB 1 supernova remnant is the large ashen shell in this image combining data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) with infrared observations (blue). The expanding shell is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon.

Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

Version with galactic coordinate grid. The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) along with infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon. Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

Version with galactic coordinate grid.

The CTB 1 supernova remnant resembles a ghostly bubble in this image, which combines new 1.5 gigahertz observations from the Very Large Array radio telescope (orange, near center) with older observations from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) along with infrared data (blue). The VLA data clearly reveal the straight, glowing trail from pulsar J0002+6216 and the curved rim of the remnant’s shell. CTB 1 is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon.

Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from NRAO/F. Schinzel et al., DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

Version with galactic coordinate grid. The CTB 1 supernova remnant is the large ashen shell in this image combining data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) with infrared observations (blue). The expanding shell is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon. Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

Version with galactic coordinate grid.

The CTB 1 supernova remnant is the large ashen shell in this image combining data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory’s Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (1.42 gigahertz, magenta and yellow; 408 megahertz, green) with infrared observations (blue). The expanding shell is about half a degree across, the apparent size of a Full Moon.

Credit: Composite by Jayanne English, University of Manitoba, using data from DRAO/Canadian Galactic Plane Survey and NASA/IRAS

Artist's animation of Pulsar J0002+6216 speeding away from its birthplace and escaping the shell of debris from the supernova explosion that created it.

https://vimeo.com/325195213

Credit: Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF

Textless Version. New radio observations combined with 10 years of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have revealed a runaway pulsar that escaped the blast wave of the supernova that formed it.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Music: "Forensic Scientist" from Killer Tracks

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This page was originally published on Tuesday, March 19, 2019.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:46 PM EDT.

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