*When they are active, they spin with such regularity that they’re used as timers by scientist.

The first pulsar ever discovered was discovered in the fall of 1967, when a post-graduate named Jocelyn Bell was examining many charts of radio measurements of the sky. The data was acquired with a massive radio telescope that was located at the University of Cambridge. She found that what she had seen earlier that summer, and thought to be a distortion in the chart, was actually a group of tightly packed radio pulses. 

Antony Hewish, Jocelyn’s adviser, who had designed the telescope, thought that the strange radio pulses were man made interference. However, after more research it became clear that the radio pulses were originating from a fixed place in space, somewhere in the constellation of Vulpecula the Fox. They thought that it could’ve been a message from an alien race. They even named the strange radio signal LGM-1, standing for Little Green Men.

But, more ‘pulsating stars’ were found in 1968, called pulsars for short and it soon became very clear that Jocelyn had found a new type of celestial body. Then, astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, began to think that they might be the leftovers of supernovas. Later, other scientists confirmed that these pulsars had to be rapidly spinning neutron stars. That same year the discovery of a new pulsar the  Crab pulsar, was made in the center of the remnants of a supernova. Confirming that they were birthed from supernovas. 

In the years to follow, pulsars were found to be located in some binary systems, this helped to support the theory of general relativity that Einstein proposed. And in 1982, a pulsar that spun every 1.6 microseconds was discovered. Also, the very first extrasolar planets (a planet that doesn’t orbit our sun) that were discovered were orbiting a pulsar. However, none of them had a great possibility for life.

Other pulsars are just as brilliant as the Vela pulsar and have some interesting properties. A pulsar has the most energy and speed when it is first formed, as it loses that during its life and within 10-100 million years the jet will stop and it will become silent. Pulsars while active can be used as timers because of their consistency in spinning. Some pulsars even rival atomic clocks in their accuracy.

*"Neues Chandra-Video zeigt einen Neutronenstern in Aktion." Astropage.eu. N.p., 08 Oct. 2016. Web. 20 Apr. 2017. http://www.astropage.eu/2013/01/09/neues-chandra-video-zeigt-einen-neutronenstern-in-aktion/

*"Neues Chandra-Video zeigt einen Neutronenstern in Aktion." Astropage.eu. N.p., 08 Oct. 2016. Web. 20 Apr. 2017. http://allesoversterrenkunde.nl/!/actueel/artikelen/_detail/gli/the-secret-history-of-pulsars/ 
*"What is a Pulsar?" Universe Today. N.p., 16 Mar. 2017. Web. 20 Apr. 2017. https://www.universetoday.com/25376/pulsars/