China's FAST telescope detects over 900 new pulsars

(ECNS) -- China's Five-hundred-meter-Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), dubbed "China Sky Eye," has detected over 900 new pulsars so far, including more than 650 identified through a Galactic Plane Pulsar Snapshot (GPPS) survey, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences Tuesday.

Over the past 50-plus years since the discovery of the first pulsar in 1967, less than 3,000 pulsars have been discovered worldwide, with the number detected by FAST more than three times the total found by foreign telescopes during the same period.

It has greatly expanded the scope of human exploration of the universe, and the location of faint pulsars in particular.

The newly discovered faint pulsars have a lower flux density, the study of which has important implications for understanding the dense remnants of dead stars in the Milky Way and their radiation characteristics.

At present, the annual observation time of the FAST telescope is about 5,300 hours, playing an important role in the continuous output of scientific achievements.