China's FAST telescope finds two pulsars

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China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has identified two pulsars, the National Astronomical Observatories said Tuesday.

The pulsars are 16,000 light years and 4,100 light years from Earth with rotation periods of 1.83 seconds and 0.59 seconds respectively.

Pulsars are compact objects that look like flickering stars because they emit beams of radiation while spinning, much like lighthouses.

Built last September, FAST is the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope based in southwest China’s Guizhou Province.