FOR the first time a pulsar has been caught racing away from the supernova
that gave birth to it. Using radio telescope observations spanning 11 years, a
team led by Joshua Migliazzo of MIT has shown that pulsar B1951+32 has shifted
position by just 0.28 arc-seconds—equivalent to the width of a hair seen
from 100 metres away. That means the pulsar, which is around 7800 light years
away, is speeding away at over 200 kilometres per second.
By tracing its trajectory back, the team confirmed that the pulsar came from
the remnant of a supernova. In a paper…
