NGC 5907 X-1: record-breaking pulsar
ESA’s XMM-Newton has found a pulsar the spinning remains of a once-massive star that is a 1000X brighter than previously thought possible. The pulsar is also the most distant of its kind ever detected, with its light travelling 50 million light-years before being detected by XMM-Newton. Pulsars are spinning, magnetised neutron stars that sweep regular pulses of radiation in two symmetrical beams across the cosmos. If suitably aligned with Earth these beams are like a lighthouse beacon appearing to flash on and off as it rotates. They were once massive stars that exploded as a powerful supernova at the end of their natural life, before becoming small and extraordinarily dense stellar corpses.
This X-ray source is the most luminous of its type detected to...
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