Scientists have discovered one of the brightest pulsars in the history of observations. Pulsar is a reborn star. After it uses all its fuel and becomes a supernova, there is a huge release of energy, i.e. an explosion. That’s how pulsar is born – an object that has a very high density.
Pulsars emit radio waves from their poles. When these rays pass through the Earth, scientists detect rapid pulses with an oscillation frequency of hundreds of times per second. With this knowledge, scientists are always looking for new pulsars inside and outside our Milky Way galaxy.
A study published in the Astrophysical Journal reports the brightest radiopulsar ever discovered outside the Milky Way. PSR J0523-7125 is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest galaxies to us, and is more than ten times brighter than other radio pulsars outside the Milky Way.
The Large Magellanic Cloud has been studied by the Parks Telescope several times in the last 50 years, but this pulsar has never been detected. And only thanks to the ASKAP telescope of the Australian National Science Agency CSIRO, which has the equivalent of polarized sunglasses, scientists were able to detect signs of the pulsar PSR J0523-7125.
The highly sensitive MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, operated by the South African Radio Astronomical Observatory, has finally dispelled the doubts. Observations from MeerKAT have shown that the source is indeed the new pulsar PSR J0523-7125, which rotates at a speed of about three revolutions per second. The distance from the new pulsar to the Earth is about 160,000 light years.
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