World’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope finds missing link in evolution of spider pulsar system

Researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) and their collaborators at home and abroad have discovered a binary pulsar with a 53-minute orbital period using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). The discovery of this binary system—named PSR J1953+1844 or M71E—fills the gap in the evolution of spider pulsar systems. The findings were published in Nature on June 20.