Speaking of Obligations...final: the Pulsar

Wheel of stars (clicking on this link will take you to an amazing website.)

The Pulsar

Upon supernova, stars sometimes crush their cores into neutron stars carrying enormous magnetic fields and angular momenta. These fields exceed the earth's by a factor of around 10¹², and they rotate about once per second despite having masses exceeding that of the sun!  Such powerful electrodynamics create beams of radio waves sweeping across earth's observatories once per pulsar rotation. This produces a fascinating periodic signal which we observe and study--a pulsar.

The pulsar turns, dervish-like,

calling into the dust of the sky. 

Once it was a star with planets,

but there was an event.

A great blow-out.  The greatest.

The star concentrated,

focused, spinning,

pulsing, emitting at 30 Megahertz

or upward and in the optical, x-ray

and gamma ray spectrum

spinning on its axis every

1.56 milliseconds. 

Sending three holy words.

Here am I.

My own star is nearer than that

and dearer to me.

It does not speak except in heat and day.

Moon-like, I raise my silent face

to the sun and all I know.

But there is a node in my heart receiving

impulses at 30 Megahertz

or upward.  Through clouds of

dark matter, past

newborn stars and planets,

I turn round to receive,

and reply.

                                                          This is the sound of a pulsar