Heart of the Crab Pulsar probed -- first direct look into the core of a neutron star

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)