An international research team, including scientists at Australia's national science agency, has used a new observation technique to discover the brightest extragalactic pulsar known, and it could be the most luminous one ever found.
Researchers can use the remnants of massive stars, called pulsars, in areas like random number generation and guidance systems.
The ASKAP radio telescope was used by the research team to find pulsars. They found a never-before-seen pulsar that is 10 times brighter than any other detected outside of our galaxy by using the astronomy version of sunglasses.
The Astrophysical Journal published research by the lead author of a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
This was a huge surprise. I did not expect to find a new pulsar. Ms. Wang said that with the new telescopes we now have access to, it really is possible.
Professor Tara Murphy is the leader of the team that saw the first hints of this unusual pulsar in the ASKAP data and confirmed its existence with the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory.
We should expect to find more pulsars using this technique. This is the first time we have been able to search for a pulsar in a systematic and routine way. Professor Murphy said that this pulsar was missed by previous studies because of its unusual properties.
The Chief Scientist of the Australia Telescope National Facility, which includes ASKAP and two other telescopes used in the study, said that it is incredible that the first pulsar to be found using this technique is an extreme one.
This speaks to all the great things we can expect from our telescopes and researchers as they constantly find new ways to answer some of our biggest questions. The Australia National Telescope Facility provides wonderful access to our universe.
A pulsar emits two beams of radio light. The flash beams create a timing and polarization signature.
Traditional methods of finding pulsars look for flickering in telescope data, but can miss those that are too fast or slow. By looking for light that is different, you can find pulsars outside the standard timing range.
The bright spot in the radio data used to be overlooked.
More information: Yuanming Wang et al, Discovery of PSR J0523-7125 as a Circularly Polarized Variable Radio Source in the Large Magellanic Cloud, The Astrophysical Journal (2022). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac61dc Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Citation: Telescope dons 'sunglasses' to find brightest-ever pulsar (2022, May 2) retrieved 2 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-telescope-dons-sunglasses-brightest-ever-pulsar.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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