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Astronomers have discovered a pulsar鈥攁 dense and rapidly spinning neutron star sending radio waves into the cosmos鈥攗sing a low-frequency radio telescope in outback Australia.

The pulsar was detected with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope, in Western Australia鈥檚 remote Mid West region.

It鈥檚 the first time scientists have discovered a pulsar with the MWA but they believe it will be the first of many.

The finding is a sign of things to come from the multi-billion-dollar Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. The MWA is a precursor telescope for the SKA.

Nick Swainston, a PhD student at the 麻豆直播 node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), made the discovery while processing data collected as part of an ongoing pulsar survey.

鈥淧ulsars are born as a result of supernovae鈥攚hen a massive star explodes and dies, it can leave behind a collapsed core known as a neutron star,鈥� he said.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e about one and a half times the mass of the Sun, but all squeezed within only 20 kilometres, and they have ultra-strong magnetic fields.鈥�

Mr Swainston said pulsars spin rapidly and emit electromagnetic radiation from their magnetic poles.

鈥淓very time that emission sweeps across our line of sight, we see a pulse鈥攖hat鈥檚 why we call them pulsars,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can imagine it like a giant cosmic lighthouse.鈥�

ICRAR-Curtin astronomer Dr Ramesh Bhat said the newly discovered pulsar is located more than 3000 light-years from Earth and spins about once every second.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 incredibly fast compared to regular stars and planets,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut in the world of pulsars, it鈥檚 pretty normal.鈥�

Dr Bhat said the finding was made using about one per cent of the large volume of data collected for the pulsar survey.

鈥淲e鈥檝e only scratched the surface,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hen we do this project at full-scale, we should find hundreds of pulsars in the coming years.鈥�

Pulsars are used by astronomers for several applications including testing the laws of physics under extreme conditions.

鈥淎 spoonful of material from a neutron star would weigh millions of tonnes,鈥� Dr Bhat said.

鈥淭heir magnetic fields are some of the strongest in the Universe鈥攁bout 1000 billion times stronger than that we have on Earth.鈥�

鈥淪o we can use them to do physics that we can鈥檛 do in any of the Earth-based laboratories.鈥�

Finding pulsars and using them for extreme physics is also a key science driver for the SKA telescope.

MWA Director Professor Steven Tingay said the discovery hints at a large population of pulsars awaiting discovery in the Southern Hemisphere.

鈥淭his finding is really exciting because the data processing is incredibly challenging, and the results show the potential for us to discover many more pulsars with the MWA and the low-frequency part of the SKA.鈥�

鈥淭he study of pulsars is one of the headline areas of science for the multi-billion-dollar SKA, so it is great that our team is at the forefront of this work,鈥� he said.