FAST detects pulsars

• Recently, a team from the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered 76 intermittent pulsars in the Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot Survey, including the faintest known pulsars to date, using China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST).

 ABOUT PULSARS

• Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit electromagnetic radiation along their magnetic axes.
• First discovered, in 1967, by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish.
• ‘Period’ of the pulsar refers to time when pulsar appears to ‘switch off’ at points when the light is facing away from Earth.

ABOUT FAST

• The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) is a Chinese mega science project that began operations in 2016.
• It is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope, located in Chinese province Guizhou.
• It has a diameter of 500 meters, comprising 4,450 triangular panels.