radio beam

Dr Taylor described the radio beams from pulsars as being like light beams from a lighthouse.

To detect the spiraling pairs, observers train large radio telescopes on dozens of pulsars—collapsed stars emitting radio beams that, as the pulsar spins, appear as pulses with clocklike regularity.

The stars, collapsed stellar remnants made of tightly packed neutrons, are called pulsars because as they spin, they emit radio beams that sweep past Earth like a lighthouse.

Those fields power pulsars, which sweep a radio beam past Earth at regular intervals as they spin.

Connery answers diffidently: “A little. It’s throwing the gyroscopic controls of a guided missile off balance with a … a radio beam or something, isn’t it?”