China claims to have captured a 'legendary' space signal

The FAST super telescope located in Guizhou - China has found the first evidence of a type of cosmic signal that can help humanity reach super-massive objects "crossing space" from the early universe.

Published online in the international scientific journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics , Chinese scientists said that through observing pulsars, they have found important evidence of the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves .

The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) located in Guizhou Province, China - (Photo: XINHUA).

Nanohertz gravitational waves have been known theoretically but have been difficult to detect directly. They have extremely low frequencies and wavelengths of up to several light years.

FAST is one of the world's most powerful radio telescopes, capable of observing the most difficult objects for long periods of time , such as millisecond pulsars, a type of neutron star - the corpses of giant stars - that are extremely active, with a rotation period of only 1-10 milliseconds.

According to CGTN, taking advantage of FAST's high sensitivity, researchers led by the National Astronomical Observatories of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) under the China Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) project have monitored 57 millisecond pulsars at a regular rhythm for 41 months.

This tracking accidentally revealed signs compatible with a "legendary" signal known as nanohertz gravitational waves, with a false alarm probability of just 2 parts per million.

"Nanohertz gravitational waves open an important window for humans to observe the universe, which will certainly lead to many great discoveries in physics," NAOC Director Chang Jin affirmed.

Mr. Chang Jin said this discovery will be applied in the study of super-massive objects in the universe, including "monster" black holes , the formation - evolution - merger of galaxies, the structure of the early universe.