The universe is a strange place. The X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) orbiting observatory recently highlighted this fact, when it was turned on a pulsar to document its powerful cosmic winds.

The XRISM observatory is a joint mission for NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission was also a replacement for the ill-fated Hitomi X-ray observatory, which failed shortly after launch in 2016.

The discovery comes courtesy of ESA’s Resolve instrument, a soft X-ray spectrometer aboard XRISM. The study looked at neutron star GX 13+1. This is a strong X-ray source located in the constellation Sagittarius, very near the galactic plane towards the core of our galaxy. GX 13+1 is about 23,000 light-years distant. The system is a binary, consisting of a pulsar and a massive star in a 24.5-day orbit.