Science in the Glorious Quran: The Pulsar

“وَالسَّمَاءِ وَالطَّارِقِ. وَمَا أَدْرَاكَ مَا الطَّارِقُ. النَّجْمُ الثَّاقِبُ” (الطارق:1-3).

“By the sky and the tariq (knocker or pulsar) – And what will convey to you what the tariq is? It is the piercing star.” (Qur’an, 86:1-3)

A knocker, or what is scientifically called a pulsar, results from a star explosion. Even though it is only 20 kilometers across, its material consists of neutrons and its mass is heavier than the mass of the sun. It spins more than 600 rotations per second and emits a beam of polarized radiation that can pierce anything. The beam repeatedly crosses the Earth in regular pulses as if someone is knocking at a door.

A pulsar (tariq, in Arabic) originates from the explosion of a massive star (left). It is a small and extremely dense ball of neutrons with a thin solid crust on its surface (right)

A neutron star (pulsar) spins very fast and produces glowing cones of radiation stemming from its magnetic poles.