Every pulsar we have measured — dead neutron stars whose radio beams sweep past Earth on a fixed period — plotted on the galactic sky, each blinking at its real spin rate: some once a second, some 700 times a second. Drag the filter to keep only the fastest.
Data & source
Source: ATNF Pulsar Catalogue (Manchester, Hobbs, Teoh & Hobbs 2005), via
VizieR B/psr,
fetched —. This is the compiled catalogue of —
known radio pulsars with a measured spin period — the ones we've found and timed, not
every pulsar that exists. Position is the pulsar's real place on the galactic sky (Hammer
projection). Blink cadence follows each pulsar's true period, but compressed
logarithmically so milliseconds and seconds can share one clock — a real millisecond
pulsar spins hundreds of times a second, far too fast to see. Colour marks the population;
the millisecond cut is the conventional 30 ms. Distances are model estimates and some
are unknown.