Material accumulating on the pulsar surface can sometimes ignite, causing thermonuclear flashes that emit bursts of X-ray light. These thermonuclear flames spread across the surface of the pulsar in a few seconds. The team established that “burst oscillations”, a kind of flickering, during these X-ray bursts provide a direct measure of the pulsar's spin rate. This animation is a slow-motion depiction of a thermonuclear flash or X-ray burst spreading across a rotating pulsar. The pulsar would actually be rotating hundreds of revolutions per second
Dana Berry/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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