Stellar rotation can have a very rapid rate of rotation; on the order of a hundred rotations per second. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars that have a magnetic field. A narrow beam of electromagnetic radiation is emitted from the poles of rotating pulsars. If the beam sweeps past the direction of the Solar System then the pulsar will produce a periodic pulse that can be detected from the Earth. The energy radiated by the magnetic field gradually slows down the rotation rate, so that older pulsars can require as long as several seconds between each pulse. A black hole is an object
Beam-powered propulsion that the sail need not be a continuous surface. Forward tagged his proposal for an ultralight sail "Starwisp". A later analysis by Landis suggested that the Starwisp concept as originally proposed by Forward would not work, but variations on the proposal might be implemented. The beam has to have a large diameter so that only a small portion of the beam misses the sail due to diffraction and the laser or microwave antenna has to have a good pointing stability so that the craft can tilt its sails fast enough to follow the center of the beam. This gets more