A Neutron Star Spins 716 Times Every Second

A neutron star spins 716 times every second, sending its equator around at about one quarter the speed of light.

Astronomy

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Neutron stars are the crushed cores left behind after some massive stars explode. They can pack roughly a Sun or more of mass into a sphere only a few tens of kilometers across, making them extraordinarily dense. One especially extreme pulsar, PSR J1748-2446ad, rotates 716 times per second, completing one turn in about 1.4 milliseconds. Its equator moves at roughly 24 percent of the speed of light, or more than 70,000 kilometers per second. The object is in the globular cluster Terzan 5 and belongs to a binary system. Astronomers discovered its rapid pulses with the Green Bank Telescope in 2006. Its extreme rotation provides useful limits on the size and internal physics of neutron stars, while also helping scientists study how rapidly rotating pulsars can form and how matter transferred from a companion can spin them up. The 716 hertz measurement remains a landmark observation of neutron-star rotation, although later observations have also found other neutron stars showing similarly extreme frequencies in different circumstances.

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