NASA’s IXPE tracked a rare pulsar—and found an unexpected power source

Astronomers using NASA's IXPE telescope and other instruments have discovered new insights into how pulsars interact with surrounding matter. The team studied a rare transitional millisecond pulsar system called J1023, finding that X-rays originate from the pulsar wind rather than the accretion disk. This challenges previous models and provides valuable information about neutron star evolution and particle acceleration in binary systems.