science · 13 November 1998 · 26 years ago
In 1998, the discovery of the 1,000th pulsar in our galaxy was announced in a press release by the Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester, using the 64-meter Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia. A “multibeam” receiver was installed on the telescope in early 1997. This allowed the astronomers from England, Australia, United States, and Italy to find pulsars much faster than before. On average, they found a new pulsar in every hour of observing. By this date, the researchers had found more than 200 pulsars and they expected to find another 600 more before the survey ended. The “multibeam” receiver used consists of 13 hexagonally arranged receivers that allow simultaneous observations.
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