PSR B1937%2B21
PSR B1937+21 is a pulsar located in the constellation Vulpecula a few degrees in the sky away from the first discovered pulsar, PSR B1919+21. The name PSR B1937+21 is derived from the word "pulsar" and the declination and right ascension at which it is located, with the "B" indicating that the coordinates are for the 1950.0 epoch. PSR B1937+21 was discovered in 1982 by Don Backer, Shri Kulkarni, Carl Heiles, Michael Davis, and Miller Goss. It is the first discovered millisecond pulsar, with a rotational period of 1.557708 milliseconds, meaning it completes almost 642 rotations per second. This period was far shorter than astronomers considered pulsars capable of reaching, and led to the suggestion that pulsars can be spun-up by accreting mass from a companion. The rotation of PSR B1937+21, along with other millisecond pulsars discovered later, are very stable in their rotation. They are capable of keeping time as well as atomic clocks. PSR B1937+21 is unusual in that it is one of few pulsars which occasionally emits particularly strong pulses. The flux density of the giant pulses emitted by PSR B1937+21 are the brightest radio emission ever observed. These properties of PSR B1937+21, and its unexpected discovery, are credited with helping revitalize research on pulsars.
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