 This is the Crab Nebula. Located 6,500 light years away, the Crab Nebula was born from a supernova witnessed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers nearly 1,000 years ago. While stellar remnants like these aren't common in the night sky, what makes the Crab Nebula unique is that it has a beating heart, one that scientists are just now learning pounds harder than they previously thought. A team led by researchers from the Rekin Cluster for Pioneering Research have discovered that the giant pulses emitted by the star at the Crab Nebula's center carry hundreds of times more energy than hinted at by past calculations. Understanding the science behind this discovery could give researchers a clearer picture of similar phenomena throughout the known universe. The pounding star at the center of the Crab Nebula is what's known as a pulsar. Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating stars that emit regular pulses of electromagnetic radiation. These pulses can only be detected when a beam of emission points directly at Earth. And because a pulsar's beat is exceedingly steady, it could serve future deep space expeditions as a kind of GPS satellite, or IPS, interstellar positioning system. Every once in a while, a pulsar will unleash a giant pulse. These giant pulses are the result of a strong emission that spans the electromagnetic spectrum from a range of visible and radio frequencies into the realm of X-rays. That foray into the more energetic region of the spectrum had never been measured for a giant pulse. The team's discovery provided a more complete picture of the Crab Pulsar's energy signature thanks to NASA's NICER telescope, the neutron star interior composition explorer. Located aboard the International Space Station, the NICER telescope captured data from the Crab Pulsar over three years with the help of ground-based telescopes in Japan. NICER's high precision in time enabled the researchers to, for the first time, measure an X-ray enhancement from a giant burst. These pulses occur within a millionth of a second. NICER is equipped to record X-rays within a tenth of that timeframe. Learning more about how giant pulses like these occur can provide insight into other fast, high-energy phenomena whose extragalactic origins tend to be obscure.