Hey stargazers! 🌌✨ China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), aka the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, is making waves in the cosmos! Since its launch in 2016, this gigantic eye on the sky has discovered more than 900 new pulsars! 😱🌠
Pulsars are like the cosmic lighthouses of the universe—fast-spinning neutron stars left behind when massive stars go supernova. 🌟💥 Think of them as the beats in the galaxy's soundtrack, and FAST is tuning into all the latest hits! 🎶
Han Jinlin, a cool scientist from the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), spilled the tea that among these pulsars are over 120 binary pulsars, more than 170 millisecond pulsars, and 80 faint and intermittent ones. Talk about variety! 🔭🌠
Get this: In the past 50+ years since the first pulsar was found, less than 3,000 pulsars were spotted worldwide. But FAST alone has discovered over three times the number of new pulsars found by other telescopes during the same period. 🤯
\"This study is a big deal for understanding the dense remnants of dead stars in the Milky Way and how they shine,\" Han said. 🌌✨
Pulsar hunting is a major gig for FAST. These space gems can help confirm gravitational waves, black holes, and answer some of physics' biggest mysteries. 🕵️♀️🔭
Jiang Peng, the chief engineer behind FAST, said their team is always pushing the telescope's performance to the max. With about 5,300 hours of observations each year, FAST is a superstar in churning out scientific discoveries. 🌠🏆
Located in a deep karst depression in southwest China's Guizhou Province, FAST started its cosmic journey in January 2020 and is considered the world's most sensitive radio telescope. Talk about reaching for the stars! 🚀🌟
Reference(s):
China's gigantic telescope detects over 900 new pulsars since launch
cgtn.com
