Credit: NASA/CXC/University of Massachusetts/D. Wang et al.; Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
In nine years in space, the LAT has discovered more than 200 pulsars – rapidly spinning, very dense and highly magnetized neutron stars that emit “beams” of gamma rays like cosmic lighthouses. Many of these pulsars spin around their axis up to several hundred times per second. They reach these enormous spin rates by leaching energy from companion stars, as shown in this illustration. The background image shows the center of the Milky Way as seen by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.