Neutron stars spin hundreds of times per second
After a massive star's explosive death, its core becomes a neutron star, a tiny, super-dense object that can spin hundreds of times per second, creating cosmic lighthouses.
When a massive star explodes as a supernova, its leftover core collapses into a neutron star, an incredibly dense object. Though only about 12 miles across, it packs the mass of one to two suns! This collapse makes it spin incredibly fast, sometimes hundreds of times per second, much like a figure skater pulling in their arms. The fastest, called millisecond pulsars, can rotate up to 700 times per second, as seen in PSR J1748-2446ad. These extreme rotations create powerful magnetic fields and emit radiation beams, appearing as cosmic lighthouses to Earth-based telescopes.