China massive telescope finds more than 900 new pulsars

Since its inception in 2016, China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the biggest single-dish radio telescope in the world, has discovered over 900 new pulsars, according to information released by its operator on Wednesday.

Fast-spinning neutron stars called pulsars are created when supernova explosions cause the imploding cores of enormous dead stars to burst.

According to Han Jinlin, a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (NAOC) National Astronomical Observatories, there were more than 120 binary pulsars, more than 170 millisecond pulsars, and 80 feeble and intermittent pulsars among the pulsars.

Less than 3,000 pulsars have been identified globally in the more than 50 years after the first pulsar was discovered, according to Han. Furthermore, the number of new pulsars found by FAST is more than three times the total number of pulsars found by foreign telescopes during the same era.

“The study has important implications for understanding the dense remnants of dead stars in the Milky Way and their radiation characteristics,” Han stated.

An essential mission for FAST is observing pulsars, which may be used to verify the existence of black holes and gravitational radiation as well as provide information on a wide range of other fundamental physics topics.

The FAST’s main engineer, Jiang Peng, stated that every employee tries their hardest to enhance the telescope’s functionality. Currently, the telescope observes for over 5,300 hours a year, and thus contributes significantly to the ongoing production of scientific research findings.

Situated in the Guizhou Province of southwest China, in a deep and circular karst valley, FAST commenced formal operations in January 2020. It’s thought to be the most sensitive radio telescope in the world.