AS102 Study Guide - Final Guide: Accretion Disk, White Dwarf, Crab Nebula
Document Summary
If the earth (or any other object) is in the line of the radiation then it receives a pulse of radiation every time the star spins around once, as the pulsar traces out its cone of light in space. Naturally, as the pulsar (the spinning, radiating neutron star) spews out light it is losing mass and thus, again because of the conservation of angular momentum, gradually slows down. Nebula now spins at about 30 times per second; in a few thousand years it will spin about half as fast. It is likely that all neutron stars generate beams of radiation that sweep out great conical paths in the universe. Earth, happen to be in a position to intercept some of that light we call the star a pulsar, not because it actually pulses but because we perceive it that way.
