2023-06-23 04:06:00
GUIYANG, June 23 (Xinhua) — China’s FAST telescope has identified a binary pulsar with an orbital period of 53.3 minutes, the shortest ever found for a binary pulsar system.
The research, carried out mainly by a team led by scientists from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), was published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Pulsars, very rapidly rotating neutron stars, arise from the imploded cores of massive dying stars by the explosion of supernovae. The observation of pulsars is an important mission of FAST and can be used to confirm the existence of gravitational radiation and black holes, and help solve other major questions in physics.
Binary pulsar PSR J1953+1844 (M71E) belongs to the spider pulsar system with the highest orbital angular velocity recorded to date. This is the first time that the middle state of evolution between red back and black widow pulsars has been discovered, which closes the gap in the theory of spider pulsar evolution, said Jiang Peng, an engineer in head of FAST.
Astronomical observations have discovered that some pulsars have a companion star in a close orbit. “The orbital period of evolving pulsars is particularly short, and the distance between the two stars is very narrow, which poses a great challenge for observation,” said NAOC researcher Han Jinlin.
With FAST’s high sensitivity and detection capabilities, the evolutionary path can be confirmed, Han added.
Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in Pingtan County, southwest China’s Guizhou Province, FAST began operating in January 2020 and officially opened to the world on March 31, 2021. It is considered the most sensitive radio telescope in the world. END
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