Hiding In Plain Sight: Astronomers Find New Type Of Stellar Object
“They missed it because they hadn’t expected to find anything like it.” 2023 July 19, Nature
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The Southern-Sky MWA Rapid Two-Metre (SMART) pulsar survey is an ongoing project to discover new pulsars (neutron stars) in the southern sky (δ < 30°) using the MWA. This is the only pulsar survey capable of looking for pulsars in the Southern Hemisphere at low frequencies (140-170 MHz), and once complete, it is expected to discover hundreds of new pulsars. Apart from its inherent scientific value, it also serves as a valuable reference for future pulsar searches planned with the low-frequency Square Kilometre Array.
The survey design is unique. Thanks to the MWA’s large field of view (~610 square degrees) and its Voltage Capture System, the whole sky (visible to the MWA) can be observed in just 70 observing sessions. With each session recording data for 80 minutes, the whole data collection phase of the survey will take less than 100 hours of observing time, but will ultimately accrue ~3 PB of data. The survey will have a limiting sensitivity of ~2-3 mJy, effectively 3-5 times deeper than the previous low-frequency southern-sky pulsar survey, completed in the 1990s.
The phenomenal survey speed is offset by the impressively large computational cost of processing all the data. For each observation, thousands of so-called “tied-array beams” must be formed by combining the data recorded at each MWA tile in a particular way, to maximise sensitivity towards each direction within the field of view. Each tied-array beam must then be individually searched for pulsar signals, using algorithms that exploit different properties of pulsar signals (the primary one being that the pulses are generally periodic!) All of this processing will take millions upon millions of hours of supercomputing time, and is expected to take years to complete.
A full description of the survey will be published soon (watch this space!)
MWA astronomers are leading the way at low frequencies – read up on the latest news.
“They missed it because they hadn’t expected to find anything like it.” 2023 July 19, Nature
Read MoreFinding the astronomical equivalent of a needle in a haystack, the ‘SMART’ way! A team led by ICRAR-Curtin researchers have published details in PASA of how they are using the MWA telescope to find new pulsars in our galaxy. 2023 April 27, Space Australia
Read MorePulsars create repeating flashes of radio light, and are so regular that you can set your watch to them. In fact, that’s exactly what some astronomers want to do! 2022 June 28, ICRAR
Read MoreA team mapping radio waves in the Universe has discovered something unusual that releases a giant burst of energy three times an hour. 2022 January 27, Nature
Read More2021 April 21, ICRAR, Particle, Springer, Science Daily, The West Australian
Read More2017 October 17, Curtin University Media Release, ABC News
Read MoreWhat sounds like a stomach-turning ride at an amusement park might hold the key to unravelling the mysterious mechanism that causes beams of radio waves to shoot out from pulsars − super-magnetic rotating stars in our Galaxy. 2017 March 21, Curtin University Media Release
Read MoreFor the first time an international team of scientists, using a combination of radio and optical telescopes including the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), has managed to identify the precise location of a fast radio burst (FRB). 2016 February 25, Curtin University Media Release
Read MoreOur broad themes of investigation, driving new scientific discoveries with the MWA.