Home▸Physics & Mechanics▸Pulsar Neutron Star: Spin Speed (2D)

🧪 Pulsar Neutron Star: Spin Speed (2D)

A top-down lighthouse-model companion to the 3D pulsar: sweep two beams past a fixed observer line, tune spin rate, beam width and line-of-sight offset, and watch a live light curve register each pulse.

Physics & Mechanics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion trades the orbiting 3D camera for a flat, top-down lighthouse diagram: two beams sweep around the star while a fixed dashed line marks a distant observer. A live strip chart plots brightness against time — the same "light curve" astronomers actually record — so you can see directly how spin rate sets the pulse period and how widening the observer-misalignment slider past the beam width silences the pulses entirely, just as it does for real pulsars whose beams never cross Earth.

⚙ Under the hood

Two Canvas2D beam cones sweep past a fixed observer line at a controllable spin rate; brightness is scored per frame from the angular offset and plotted as a scrolling light curve, with an observer-misalignment control that can drop the pulse rate to zero.

Neutron StarPulsar2DLight Curve

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install