Universe  ID: 20136

Gamma Rays in Pulsars

This animation takes us into a spinning pulsar, with its strong magnetic field rotating along with it. Clouds of charged particles move along the field lines and their gamma-rays are beamed like a lighthouse beacon by the magnetic fields. As our line of sight moves into the beam, we see the pulsations once every rotation of the neutron star.

Animation Credits

Walt Feimer (HTSI): Lead Animator
Alice Harding (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Steven Ritz (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20136

Missions:
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
GLAST

Data Used:
Fermi/LAT
Event List
Fermi Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT)
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
Astrophysics Animations

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
DLESE >> Space science
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Spectral/Engineering >> Gamma Ray
SVS >> Astrophysics
SVS >> Universe
SVS >> Pulsar
SVS >> GLAST
SVS >> Space
SVS >> Fermi
NASA Science >> Universe

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0