PSR B1257+12, also known as Lich, is a millisecond pulsar located 2,600 light years away in the constellation Virgo. A pulsar is a type of neutron star, the collapsed core of a massive star consisting primarily of neutrons, where its strong magnetic field and rapid rotation cause it to release jets of highly energized particles from its magnetic poles. Each time these jets point in our direction, they appear as regular flashes of light, like a lighthouse. These pulses are so powerful they can be detected across an entire galaxy.

This pulsar has 1.4x the mass of the Sun and a diameter of 10 kilometres, making it unfathomably dense. It completes a single rotation every 0.006219 seconds, which translates to about 161 rotations per second. While this sounds stupid fast for a star, it isn't anywhere near as fast as the fastest millisecond pulsars out there.

This monster happens to be one of my favourite pulsars for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the fact it was the first star around which astronomers confirmed the existence of three exoplanets! How these perpetually irradiated worlds survived their host star's violent transformation from a normal star to a pulsar remains a mystery.

Pulsars are one of my favourite astronomical phenomena. If I didn't have my heart set on cosmology or planetary science, I would've gone into radio astronomy to study pulsars and other neat stuff like them.

Honourable mention: PSR B0329+54 my beloved 💕. Every "click" of these pulsars is a single rotation. Of an entire star. Smaller than a city. Yet heavier than the SUN. Keep that in mind.

1257+12 MY BELOVED

zhis is a great writeup and i love zhe interpretation of zhe planetary surface. stamp of approval from a radio yinglet who's studied zhis pulsar before :3