Pulsed X-rays from the Vela pulsar

An unambiguous detection by the Rosat satellite of pulsed X-ray emission from the Vela pulsar is reported. The pulse signal is soft, appearing mainly at energies less than 1 keV. The Rosat observations resolve the two sources of emission and show that the pointlike emission centered on the pulsars is soft, whereas the emission from the compact nebula is hard. The observations show that Vela more closely resembles older pulsars that the archetypal young pulsar embedded in an SNR.