Why in news
Recently, astronomers discovered a radio transient that isn’t like anything astronomers have seen before.
Not only does it have a cycle almost an hour long (the longest ever seen), but over several observations we saw it sometimes emitting long, bright flashes, sometimes fast, weak pulses – and sometimes nothing at all.
What is pulsars?
Pulsars are rapidly rotating Neutron Stars that blast out pulses of radiation at regular intervals ranging from seconds to milliseconds.
Pulsars have strong magnetic fields that funnel particles along their magnetic poles accelerating them to relativistic speeds, which produces two powerful beams of light, one from each pole.
The periodicity of pulsars is caused by these beams of light crossing the line of sight on Earth, with the pulsar appearing to 'switch off' at points when the light is facing away from Earth.
The time between these pulses is the 'period' of the pulsar.
ASKAP radio telescope
Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is developed and operated by the Australia’s science agency Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
This telescope, which has been fully operational since February 2019 mapped over three million galaxies in a record 300 hours during its first all-sky survey conducted late last year.
ASKAP surveys are designed to map the structure and evolution of the Universe, which it does by observing galaxies and the hydrogen gas that they contain.
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