🎇 Pulsar

Pulsar simulation

🧠 Original idea based on pulsar.py by Paul Francis
🐍 A VPython demo is available as well, see pulsar.py

About pulsars

Most neutron stars are observed as pulsars. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars observed to have pulses of radiation at very regular intervals that typically range from milliseconds to seconds. Pulsars have very strong magnetic fields which funnel jets of particles out along the two magnetic poles. These accelerated particles produce very powerful beams of light. Often, the magnetic field is not aligned with the spin axis, so those beams of particles and light are swept around as the star rotates. When the beam crosses our line-of-sight, we see a pulse, in other words, we see pulsars turn on and off as the beam sweeps over Earth. — nasa.gov

Artist impression of a pulsar