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The Guitar nebula - A bow shock from a slow-spin, high-velocity neutron starThe discovery is reported of a prominent nebula produced by the motion of a high-velocity pulsar, PSR 2224 + 65, through partially neutral gas. The pulsar's transverse speed of over about 800 km/s makes it arguably the fastest known star in the Galaxy and guarantees that it will ultimately escape the Galactic potential well. A deep H-alpha image reveals a bright head and a giant limb-brightened 'body' whose variable width suggests that the ambient interstellar gas has density variations on length scales less than 0.1 pc. Thermalization of shock energy occurs at a rate of about 0.01 times the pulsar's spindown loss rate. These observations provide some insights into the likelihood of finding shocks around other pulsars and the use of nebulae to find high-velocity neutron stars either not acting as pulsars or with their radiation beamed away from the earth.
Document ID
19930047364
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Cordes, James M.
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Romani, Roger W.
(Stanford Univ. CA, United States)
Lundgren, Scott C.
(Cornell Univ. Ithaca, NY, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
March 11, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: Nature
Volume: 362
Issue: 6416
ISSN: 0028-0836
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
93A31361
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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