20 Facts about pulsars

1.The first radio pulsar "CP 1919" (now known as PSR B1919+21), with a pulse period of 1.337 seconds and a pulse width of 0.04-second, was discovered in 1967.

2.The first binary pulsar, PSR 1913+16, whose orbit is decaying at the exact rate predicted due to the emission of gravitational radiation by general relativity.

3.The brightest radio pulsar, the Vela Pulsar.

4.The first millisecond pulsar, PSR B1937+21.

5.The brightest millisecond pulsar, PSR J0437-4715.

6.The first X-ray pulsar, Cen X-3.

7.The first accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar, SAX J1808.4-3658.

8.The first pulsar with planets, PSR B1257+12.

9.The first pulsar observed to have been affected by asteroids: PSR J0738-4042.

10.The first double pulsar binary system, PSR J0737−3039.

11.The shortest period pulsar, PSR J1748-2446ad, with a period of ~0.0014 seconds or ~1.4 milliseconds (716 times a second).

12.longest period pulsar, at 118.2 seconds, as well as the only known example of a white dwarf pulsar, AR Scorpii.

13.The longest period neutron star pulsar, PSR J0250+5854, with a period of 23.5 seconds.

14.The pulsar with the most stable period, PSR J0437-4715.

15.The first millisecond pulsar with 2 stellar mass companions, PSR J0337+1715.

16.PSR J1841-0500, stopped pulsing for 580 days. One of only two pulsars known to have stopped pulsing for more than a few minutes.

17.PSR B1931+24, has a cycle. It pulses for about a week and stops pulsing for about a month.One of only two pulsars known to have stopped pulsing for more than a few minutes.

18.PSR J1903+0327, a ~2.15 ms pulsar discovered to be in a highly eccentric binary star system with a Sun-like star.

19.PSR J2007+2722, a 40.8-hertz 'recycled' isolated pulsar was the first pulsar found by volunteers on data taken in February 2007 and analyzed by distributed computingproject Einstein@Home.

20.PSR J1311–3430, the first millisecond pulsar discovered via gamma-ray pulsations and part of a binary system with the shortest orbital period.

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