A New X-Ray Millisecond Pulsar is Located in the Milky Way

MAXI J1816-195 is a rare comic object that's approximately 30,000 light-years away and is recently discovered. This rare type of star is an accreting X-ray millisecond pulsar located in the Milky Way.

Our Milky Way has more than 200 billion stars. This millisecond pulsar is so rare that just 19 of its types are ever identified, and it is pretty close to us on an astronomical scale of just 70,000 light-years from Earth. MAXI, an instrument on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS), detected it for the first time on June 7. Astrophysicist Jamie Kennea and his team localized this star using the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.

At the location specified by MAXI observations, the telescope observed the object in X-rays, but not in optical or ultraviolet light. A NASA X-ray instrument also mounted to the ISS, the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), was then used by the astronauts. As it collected the X-ray pulsations at 528.6 Hz, means the object must be spinning at a rate of 528.5 times per second. Making it a neutron star.

As a neutron star, a pulsar must also follow certain rules. like a neutron star, pulsars are collapsed cores of dying giant stars that have gone through a supernova. Pulsars must, however, emit radiation from their poles at the same time.

Scientists are still observing the object at various wavelengths in the hope of knowing more about it.