Upgraded GMRT Detects Extreme Radio Flashes From Rare Neutron Star

Using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) at Khodad, 80 km from Pune, an international team of astronomers from India, the US, Germany and the UK discovered extraordinarily bright, microsecond-duration radio flashes from a rare type of neutron star. The uGMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope) is a world-class, low-frequency radio telescope run by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), a unit of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), an aided institute under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The uGMRT is one of the world’s most sensitive radio telescopes, playing a pivotal role in key discoveries. Neutron stars are extremely dense, leftover cores of giant stars that have exploded. A pulsar is a rapidly spinning, highly magnetised neutron star that emits radio waves from regions around both of its magnetic poles.