• Key Information

  • Black Widow Pulsar

  • Type
    Neutron Star (Pulsar)
  • Rotation
    1.60734 milliseconds
  • Distance
    6,500 light years
  • Mass
    1.66 to 2.4 solar masses
  • Companion
    Brown dwarf or super-Jupiter
  • Date of Discovery
    1988
  • Learning Point
  • The Black Widow Pulsar is a neutron star, in a pulsar form, that spins once every 1.6 milliseconds, and is over 6,500 light years away from Earth. It has a companion object that is slowly being destroyed by it which is wehre it gets its name from.
  • Project
  • Draw the Black Widow pulsar and its companion circling it.
  • Location
  • Located in
    Sagittarius
  • Fun Facts
  • A pulsar is the name given to most neutron stars because they are a pulsating radio source.
  • This pulsar is rotating hundreds of times every second and is moving through space very quickly, at over 600,000 miles per hour.
  • The movement is creating a bow wave in front of the star, with the radiation of the star pushing against it, and at the same time slowly eating away at the companion object around the it.
  • The companion object is most likely a brown dwarf, or possible a super-Jupiter, that is a gas giant planet bigger than Jupiter.
  • Most likelt over the next few hundred million years the cluster of stars will gradually drift apart.