Since 2016, China’s FAST telescope has located more than 900 pulsating stars
Beijing. Since its launch in 2016, China’s 500-meter aperture spherical radio telescope (FAST) has identified more than 900 new pulsars in space, which, among their uses, function as coordinates for possible interstellar travel , which expands human vision of the cosmos, its operators reported this Wednesday.
Han Jinlin, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), quoted by the state news agency Xinhua, indicated that the pulsars detected by the also called Eye of Heaven o Tianyan They included more than 120 binary pulsars, more than 170 millisecond pulsars, and 80 faint and intermittent pulsars, thus expanding the limits of human observation of the universe.
Of the total findings by FAST, 650 were identified by a pulsar snapshot of the galactic plane, according to the report.
Pulsars originate in the core of a massive dying star that are detonated through supernova explosions. One of the important implications of research on so-called fast-spinning neutron stars is to provide cosmic coordinates for possible future interstellar travel, Jinlin said.
He added that in the more than 50 years since the discovery of the first pulsar, less than 3,000 pulsars have been discovered worldwide, and the number of new points discovered by FAST is more than three times the total of those found by telescopes. foreigners during the same period.
A previous report indicated that 224 pulsars were found as of September 30, 2020, and more than 40 high-quality papers were published.
The largest in the world of its kind
The telescope, located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwest China’s Guizhou province, has a receiving area equivalent to 30 standard football fields, making it the largest single-dish radio telescope. of the world.
At present, the telescope’s annual observing time is about 5,300 hours, and it plays an important role in the continuous production of scientific research achievements, providing researchers around the world with a powerful tool to discover the mysteries and the evolution of the universe.
Other main scientific fields to be analyzed or detected by FATS include: studying neutral hydrogen, mastering the VLBI network at low frequencies, detecting interstellar molecules and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Observing pulsars is an important task of the Sky Eye, which can be used to confirm the existence of gravitational radiation, gaseous galaxies and black holes, as well as help find answers to many other important questions in physics.
With the new report, the operations of the radio telescope, officially operational since January 2020, have greatly expanded the scope of human exploration of the universe and, in particular, the location of faint pulsars, which are very difficult to detect with other telescopes. positioned around the planet.
In the near future, the telescope will provide the international astronomical community with new perspectives, allowing them to further explore the universe and try to find the unknown, and make greater contributions to helping humans penetrate new fields of cognition, Jiang Peng added. , chief engineer of FAST, quoted by Xinhua.