A note on Pulsars

Pulsars are neutron stars that pulse with electromagnetic energy as they spin, allowing us to discover them by their signature which can be captured with a radio telescope. 

In 1969 the first pulsar was discovered and named CP 1919. CP stands for Cambridge Pulsar, named for the university where it was discovered, and 1919 refers to its coordinate location in outer space. If you ask us 1919 is an impossibly short address considering the vastness of space but our understanding of astrophysics goes only so far!

Our Pulsar design is an homage to the 1969 discovery. But what are those lines? They are our simulation of a stacked plot. The horizontal lines are drawn one at a time by a chart recorder (think of a seismograph) and stacked on top of one another, and as you can see there are mountainous shapes in the middle interrupting their left to right travel. Those shapes are recording the signal from the pulsar, which appear on earth every 1.3 seconds, and are finished quite quickly. Let's zoom in.

Bearing in mind the 1.3 second timing between the horizontal lines and the number of lines present (9) we know we are looking at 10.4 seconds of recorded data from our distant pulsar's stacked plot. Cool.

If the graphic looks somehow familiar to you it might be because of the iconic cover from Unknown Pleasures, the 1970s English post-punk group Joy Division's seminal album. They made a copy of the stacked plot of CP1919 from an encyclopedia and used it for their album cover, with no words at all. And we love it.