1. Neutron Stars and Pulsars
The discovery of neutron stars as pulsars (1968): an accomplishment of radio astronomy

2. Pulsating Radio Sources (Pulsars)
Radio sources that turned off and on (transparency)
Periods extremely precise (like precision clocks). Example, has P= seconds. Every digit is significant
Nature of these objects figured out within a year of their discovery.

3. Pulsars as rotating neutrons stars
The pulsar period is the rotation period (that’s what makes them such precise clocks)
demo

4. Pulsars as massive star remnants: the Crab Nebula Pulsar
X-ray picture (Chandra spacecraft)

5. http://chandra. harvard. edu/resources/animations/crab_timelapse_sm

6. Current status: more than 1500 radio pulsars known

7. Summary of Pulsar Properties
Periods from 5 sec to 1.6 milliseconds
All pulsars slow down with time; lifetime is about 10 million years
In addition to radio pulsars, other neutron stars seen in x-rays

8. Demo: the sounds of pulsars

9. In less than 40 years, neutron stars have gone from esoteric predictions of theoretical physics to a class of known astronomical objects with more than 1500 members. They are out there in the sky and they are associated with the outcome of massive star evolution.