China’s FAST radio telescope has found three new pulsars, the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC) announced on Tuesday.
With a receiving area equivalent to about 30 football fields, FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope)— nicknamed Tianyan— is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world. The telescope is located in southwest China’s Guizhou Province. The telescope features a fixed 500 m diameter dish and observes at wavelengths of 10 cm to 4.3 m. The telescope has been built in a naturally deep and round karst depression (the Dawodang depression) with a primary aim to observe pulsars and explore interstellar communication signals and interstellar molecules in space. Its construction started in 2011 and the trial operations started in September 2016.
Scientists define a pulsar as a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star (or white dwarf) that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. Neutron stars have huge density and have regular but short rotational periods. The radiation emitted by pulsars can be observed only when the beam is pointing toward Earth. Pulsars are important for scientists as they can help in confirming the existence of black holes and gravitational radiation. Astronomers had discovered the first extrasolar planets around a pulsar named PSR B1257+12.
According to Xinhua News, the trial operations of FAST started in September 2016, and since then, this telescope has discovered nine pulsars. The telescope is expected to discover more pulsars in coming days after its formal operations start in 2019. Li Di, chief scientist of the NAOC radio astronomy division, thinks FAST will find more than 100 pulsars each year after 2019.
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