Hey , think back that Brobdingnagian telescope in China , the Five - hundred - meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope ( FAST ) ? Well , it was switched on in September 2016 , and now some find have been revealed – pulsar !
consort toChina Daily , the telescope has distinguish wads of pulsar candidate , several of which have since been confirmed by the Parkes radio scope in Australia .
Pulsars are neutron star topology that reel incredibly rapidly , completing a rotation in a second or less , and that give off renowned wink of radiation .
" It is in truth supporting to have attain such outcome within just one year , " Peng Bo , deputy sheriff director of FAST , separate China Daily .
Of the pulsars discovered , one call J1859 - 01 is 16,000 swooning - year away and rotates once every 1.83 indorsement . Another , J1931 - 01 , is 4,100 light - years away and rotates once every 0.59 irregular .
FAST is the largest single - dish tuner scope in the world , spanning 500 meters ( 1,640 feet ) and eclipse the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico . It is positioned in a immense karst depression in southwest China ’s Guizhou Province .
The telescope is being used to study the origin and evolution of the universe , and it has already detect some challenging signals . Now it is the first Formosan radio scope to detect pulsars , and it could become the first telescope ever to encounter a pulsar outside our galaxy as early as next year , which would be a immense finding .
We know of about 2,700 pulsars inside our Milky Way so far , with the first discovered back in 1967 . FAST is expected to duplicate that number , and may also aid in the report of gravitational wave .
FAST has not been without controversy , though . When it was reconstruct , it was reported thatthousands of peoplehad to be re - locate to make way for it . In August this year , meanwhile , various report card said they werestruggling to find expertsto execute the facility .
These pulsar discoveries should hopefully get us back on rail with literal science , though . The scope is also being used to run forsignals from extraterrestrials , but as you might imagine that ’s moderately unlikely . Still , sign from distant rapidly spinning stars is just as nerveless , right ?
Next up for the telescope , researchers hope tobegin huntingfor interstellar molecule and do a large - scale survey of the neutral hydrogen in the cosmos .
