FAST discovery of pulsars exceeds 1,000

The number of pulsars discovered by China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope has exceeded 1,000, surpassing the total number of pulsars discovered by all other international telescopes over the past seven years, the National Astronomical Observatories of China announced on Tuesday.

These pulsars include a large number of millisecond pulsars and pulsar binaries, enriching the diversity and quantity of known pulsars, which is of great significance for understanding the formation and evolution of pulsars, said Zhu Weiwei, chief scientist at the FAST Operation and Development Center.

Pulsars are the remnants of massive stars that have died. Due to their high density, rapid rotation and strong magnetic fields, they are considered "natural laboratories" for studying many frontier astronomical issues.