Astrophysical fluid dynamics she pulls in her arms. These stars gradually slow down over the eons, but those bodies that are still spinning rapidly may emit radiation that from Earth appears to blink on and off as the star spins, like the beam of light from a turning lighthouse. This "pulsing" appearance gives some neutron stars the name pulsars. After spinning for several million years pulsars are drained of their energy and become normal neutron stars. Few of the known existing neutron stars are pulsars. Only about 1,000 pulsars are known to exist, though there may be hundreds of millions of old neutron
Beam dump beams to be absorbed can run into the megajoules. Materials used for such beam dumps include blocks of copper, aluminium, carbon, beryllium, and tungsten. The block often has a long conical hole, where the beam hits it, so as to spread the heating over a larger region of the block. If the beam to be absorbed is high-powered, these blocks may be up to several meters long and water-cooled. Pools of mercury have also been used. If the particles in the beam are energetic enough, induced radioactivity, production of neutrons by spalling, radiation embrittlement, and production of secondary particles can