Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has observed a Galactic globular cluster known as NGC 6522. As a result, they have discovered two new isolated pulsars in this cluster. The finding is reported in a paper published October 5 on the pre-print server arXiv.
Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. Astronomers searching for new pulsars focus their observations on globular clusters (GCs), as such gravitationally bound collections of stars are ideal factories for the formation of a large variety of astronomical objects.
Recently, a group of astronomers led by Federico Abbate of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has conducted a search for new pulsars in NGC 6522 as part of the MeerTIME and TRansients And PUlsars with MeerKAT (TRAPUM) projects.
NGC 6522 is a core-collapsed Galactic GC at a distance of about 25,100 light years, with a mass of about 300,000 solar masses. Its age is estimated to be 12 billion years, therefore it may be the oldest star cluster in the Milky Way galaxy.
“In this manuscript we report the discovery of two new isolated pulsars in NGC 6522 in observations made with the MeerKAT telescope,” the researchers wrote.
2023-10-17 01:24:03
Article from phys.org