A Tour of Vela Pulsar
Narrator (April Hobart, CXC): Unlike with
some Hollywood films, a sequel of a movie
from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is better
than the first.
The star of this Chandra movie is the Vela
pulsar, a neutron star that was formed when
a massive star collapsed.
The Vela pulsar is about 1,000 light years
from Earth, spans about 12 miles in diameter,
and makes a complete rotation in 89 milliseconds,
which is faster than a helicopter rotor.
As the pulsar whips around, it spews out a
jet of charged particles that race out along
the pulsar’s rotation axis at about 70%
the speed of light.
The new Chandra data, which were obtained
from June to September 2010, suggest that
the jet may be slowly wobbling, or precessing,
as it spins.
The first Chandra movie of Vela came out in
2003, but its shorter and unevenly spaced
exposures did not provide clear evidence for
precession of the pulsar.
If the Vela saga becomes a trilogy, maybe
more secrets of this exotic object will be
revealed.
