South Africa telescope catches faint pulse from Blue Eye Pulsar after decades of silence
Astronomers using South Africa's MeerKAT telescope have detected faint pulses from the 'Blue Eye Pulsar,' a neutron star previously thought to be radio-silent. This discovery helps explain why some supernova remnants appear to lack pulsars, suggesting they may simply be quieter than current detection methods allow.
Why it matters
This finding advances our understanding of neutron star evolution and improves the efficacy of deep-space observation techniques.
Combined radio and X-ray images made the object look like a glowing blue eye.
For decades, astronomers thought the Blue Eye Pulsar, a rare neutron star in the middle of a supernova remnant, was radio-silent, but a team of scientists may have just proved that theory wrong.
A faint pulse now detected by South Africa's MeerKAT telescope suggests that some of the Milky Way's "missing" pulsars may have been present all along, just much quieter than expected, according to Space.com .
The signal came from 1E 1207.4-5209, which is classified as a central compact object, or CCO. This small group of neutron stars has long perplexed researchers because its members do not seem to behave like typical pulsars.
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