100 pulses from the Vela pulsar, observed as part of commissioning tests with the four-station SKA-Low AA0.5 array.

The Vela pulsar is one of the brightest pulsars in the Southern sky, making it a prime target for test observations with the SKA-Low AA0.5 array of four stations. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars with strong magnetic fields. Their rapid and regular rotations make them incredibly precise space clocks, as accurate as the best atomic clocks on Earth. The Vela pulsar is located at the heart of a supernova remnant created when a star exploded around 12,000 years ago. The explosion shot the outer layers of the star into space, with the core collapsing to create a dense spinning neutron star. The Vela pulsar has a rotation period of 89.3 milli-seconds, meaning it rotates 11 times per second. The image above, which shows 100 pulses from the Vela pulsar, is available as movie on the SKAO website which has been sonified to make it more broadly accessible. Over 6,400 SKA-Low antennas have now been installed at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory. This represents close to 5% of SKA-Low’s full size; the telescope will ultimately have 131,072 antennas spread across 74 km.