Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
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Heart of the Crab Pulsar Probed -- First Direct Look Into the Core of a Neutron Star

Caption: New information about the heart of one of the most famous objects in the sky -- the Crab Pulsar in the Crab Nebula -- has been revealed by an international team of scientists searching for gravitational waves. The team's achievement also is the first direct look into the interior of a neutron star. The research team detected signals from the pulsar -- a rapidly spinning neutron star -- with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Gehrz (University of Minnesota)

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Related news release: Heart of the Crab Pulsar probed -- first direct look into the core of a neutron star