NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer

Space station instrument fills in blanks about binary pulsar

14 May 2018 Astronomy Now

An instrument aboard the International Space Station has detected a binary star system made up of a fast-spinning pulsar and a compact white dwarf that orbit each other every 38 minutes, a record for an accreting millisecond X-ray pulsar.

NASA hails now-departed Rossi X-ray observer

7 May 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, decommissioned in 2012, fell back into the atmosphere and burned up 30 April, finally bringing a remarkably successful mission to study black holes and neutron stars to a fiery end.

NASA’s Fermi satellite detects first gamma-ray pulsar in another galaxy

13 November 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in a galaxy other than our own. Known as PSR J0540-6919, the object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known. The pulsar lies in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that is located 163,000 light-years away.