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[Music throughout] NASA’s NICER X-ray telescope on the International

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Space Station has just shown that random outbursts from pulsars

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pack more of a punch than previously thought. Pulsars are

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rapidly spinning neutron stars, the crushed cores of exploded

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stars. One of the best-known pulsars lies at the heart of the

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famous Crab Nebula, located about

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6.500 light-years away. Light from the supernova that formed it reached

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Earth less than a thousand years ago, in the year 1054.

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The Crab pulsar spins 30 times a second and steadily

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blinks in radio, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays.

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But it also emits random, jumbo bursts called

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giant radio pulses that can be more than 10 times stronger than its regular

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signals. Now, thanks to NICER’s sensitivity,

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astronomers have shown that each giant pulse comes with an increase in

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X-ray brightness as well. Observing the Crab simultaneously with

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NICER and radio telescopes in Japan, astronomers captured

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data over some 3.7 million rotations. They show

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a nearly 4% increase in X-ray emission with each giant

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pulse. This means the phenomena responsible for giant radio

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pulses produce 10 or more times the energy previously

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estimated from radio and visible data alone. Astronomers

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think all these signals originate from particle interactions in the pulsar’s

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rapidly spinning magnetic field, but the details remain poorly known.

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Better understanding of giant pulses

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may help scientists figure out how pulsars like the Crab do what they do.

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It may also provide us with insight into a much more powerful

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phenomenon called Fast Radio Bursts, which are linked to spinning

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neutron stars in our galaxy, and others much farther away.

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[NASA]