‘Extreme’ telescopes find the second-fastest-spinning pulsar

NASA:

By following up on mysterious high-energy sources mapped out by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Netherlands-based Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope has identified a pulsar spinning at more than 42,000 revolutions per minute, making it the second-fastest known.

At some point in this system’s history, matter began streaming from the companion and onto the pulsar, gradually raising its spin to 707 rotations a second, or more than 42,000 rpm, and greatly increasing its emissions. Eventually, the pulsar began evaporating its companion, and this process continues today.

My small caveman brain can’t even comprehend a star with the mass of half a million Earths and no larger than Washington, D.C. that spins 700 plus times per second.