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Vela Pulsar Jet: New Chandra Movie Features Neutron Star Action


  • A new Chandra movie of the Vela pulsar shows it may be "precessing," or wobbling as it spins.

  • This movie contains 8 images from observations taken between June and September 2010.

  • The Vela pulsar, found about 1,000 light years from Earth, formed when a massive star collapsed.

  • The pulsar spins faster than a helicopter rotor and spews out a jet of particles at about 70% the speed of light.

This movie from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a fast moving jet of particles produced by a rapidly rotating neutron star , and may provide new insight into the nature of some of the densest matter in the universe.

The star of this 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 over 11 complete rotations every second, 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% of the speed of light. In this still image from the movie, the location of the pulsar and the 0.7-light-year-long jet are labeled.

Chandra/optical close up image
Labeled Vela Pulsar Jet

The Chandra data shown in the movie, containing 8 images obtained between June and September 2010, suggest that the pulsar may be slowly wobbling, or precessing, as it spins. The shape and the motion of the Vela jet look strikingly like a rotating helix, a shape that is naturally explained by precession, as shown in this animation. If the evidence for precession of the Vela pulsar is confirmed, it would be the first time that a jet from a neutron star has been found to be precessing in this way.

One possible cause of precession for a spinning neutron star is that it has become slightly distorted and is no longer a perfect sphere. This distortion might be caused by the combined action of the fast rotation and "glitches", sudden increases of the pulsar's rotational speed due to the interaction of the superfluid core of the neutron star with its crust.

A paper describing these results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal on January 10, 2013.

This is the second Chandra movie of the Vela pulsar, with the original having been released in 2003. The first Vela movie contained shorter, unevenly spaced observations so that the changes in the jet were less pronounced and the authors did not argue that precession was occurring. However, based on the same data, Avinash Deshpande of Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India, and the late Venkatraman Radhakrishnan, argued in a 2007 paper that the Vela pulsar might be precessing.

The Earth also precesses as it spins, with a period of about 26,000 years. In the future Polaris will no longer be the "north star" and other stars will take its place. The period of the Vela precession is much shorter and is estimated to be about 120 days.

Chandra/optical close up image
Wide field Optical and X-ray

The supernova that formed the Vela pulsar exploded over 10,000 years ago. This optical image from the Anglo-Australian Observatory's UK Schmidt telescope shows the enormous apparent size of the supernova remnant formed by the explosion. The full size of the remnant is about eight degrees across, or about 16 times the angular size of the moon. The square near the center shows the Chandra image with a larger field-of-view than used for the movie, with the Vela pulsar in the middle.

Fast Facts for Vela Pulsar Jet:
Credit  NASA/CXC/Univ of Toronto/M.Durant et al
Release Date  January 7, 2013
Scale  Movie is 4.8 x 3.6 arcmin (1.4 x 1.0 light years)
Category  Neutron Stars/X-ray Binaries
Coordinates (J2000)  RA 08h 35m 20.60s | Dec -45° 10´ 35.00"
Constellation  Vela
Observation Date  8 pointings between June and September 2010
Observation Time  89 hours (3 days, 17 hours)
Obs. ID  10135-10139, 12073-12075
Instrument  ACIS
Color Code  X-ray (Blue)
X-ray
Distance Estimate  1,000 light years
distance arrow
Visitor Comments (7)

The picture is the same as a crab picture.

Posted by Zezo on Tuesday, 04.10.18 @ 17:34pm


This is simply amazing.
I never thought before I will see the real neutron star "in action" with my eyes, and not on some "electromagnetic graph" or such.

Posted by Alex on Monday, 10.3.16 @ 14:13pm


Thanks for the beautiful photos from Chandra X-ray Observatory.
It is great to be informed about your activities and on the other hand, it is a pity to see and realize the status quo of the planet earth with political, economic, ethnic and religious chaos.

Posted by laestrelladepaz on Friday, 09.2.16 @ 04:04am


The Jet makes a fine spiral. Isn't there something that is orbiting the Vela pulsar? Something like an iron core from a binary twin that did not have a chance to go supernova because of the explosion which takes all matter but the iron core?

Posted by Data on Thursday, 01.7.16 @ 14:28pm


I am very fascinated with neutron stars, and this movie helps to feed my hunger for knowledge.

Posted by Stephanie Braxton on Friday, 03.21.14 @ 10:30am


thank you for the clarafications and explanations! This goes a long way towards satisfying my lay curiosity about physics and the universe.

Posted by stewart ruth on Sunday, 03.10.13 @ 21:08pm


Astounding, what an experience, my students will be amazed when they see this movie and experience, thank you.

Posted by PRF PATRICK MORTON, COLLEAGUES AND STUDENTS on Tuesday, 01.8.13 @ 01:12am


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