Fast work from China’s giant radio telescope helps scientists make early discoveries
Senior researchers say discovery of pulsars thousands of light years from earth makes for a ‘truly encouraging’ beginning for project
The world’s largest single-dish radio telescope has found two pulsars after one year of trial operations, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
The pulsars were discovered on August 22 and 25 by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC), according to chief scientist Li Di.
Named J1859-01 and J1931-01, the pulsars are 16,000 light years and 4,100 light years from Earth respectively.
The discoveries were confirmed by Australia’s Parkes radio telescope last month, the report said.
Pulsars are spinning collapsed stars larger than the sun, which emit flickering beams of radiation across the universe that can only be detected by sensitive telescopes.