A star’s mass determines its entire life story, from how it shines to how it dies. For young stars shrouded in dust, getting an accurate mass has long been difficult…but new radio measurements are beginning to change that.
Recent News
3I/ATLAS Contains 30X More Semi-Heavy Water Than Comets In Our Solar System
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is made of an astonishingly high ratio of semi-heavy water relative to water, indicating that its system of origin likely formed under conditions far colder than our own.
Women and Girls in Astronomy Program Now Accepting Applications
The Women and Girls in Astronomy Program (WGAP), led by Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), under the North American Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (NA-ROAD) has been awarded a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to expand its impact.
Breakthrough Listen, NSF Green Bank Telescope Probe Galactic Heart for Hidden Pulsars
Artist’s impression of the NSF Green Bank Telescope gathering data on the center of the Milky Way. The inset image shows the black hole at our Galaxy’s center, and a nearby candidate (unconfirmed) pulsar. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar / Breakthrough Listen
Astronomers discover possible millisecond pulsar, challenging ideas about how many neutron stars lurk around the Milky Way’s central black hole
Astronomers from Breakthrough Listen have used the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT) to carry out one of the most sensitive pulsar searches ever aimed at the Milky Way’s Galactic Center.
The Galactic Center, home to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* and dense stellar populations, presents unique scientific opportunities and challenges for understanding stellar dynamics, extreme astrophysical environments, and tests of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. In this research, recent Columbia University PhD graduate Karen Perez and collaborators conducted more than 20 hours of observations with the NSF GBT using the Breakthrough Listen Digital Backend, which enabled high-time and high-frequency resolution data products across a wide radio bandwidth. Of these observations, 11 hours were dedicated to the innermost 1.4 arcminutes of the Galactic Center, resulting in one of the deepest and most sensitive pulsar surveys ever performed toward this region.
These observations uncovered a promising candidate for a millisecond pulsar, with a rotation period of 8.19 milliseconds. If confirmed it would be the first such object found in the Galactic Center.
Find links to the paper, press materials, artwork, and the datasets and software at the University of Oxford Physics Department and the Breakthrough Listen Research Group.
About NRAO
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
This news article was originally published on the NRAO website on February 9, 2026.
Recent News
Unraveling the Mass Mystery of Orion’s Young Stars
A star’s mass determines its entire life story, from how it shines to how it dies. For young stars shrouded in dust, getting an accurate mass has long been difficult…but new radio measurements are beginning to change that.
3I/ATLAS Contains 30X More Semi-Heavy Water Than Comets In Our Solar System
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is made of an astonishingly high ratio of semi-heavy water relative to water, indicating that its system of origin likely formed under conditions far colder than our own.
Women and Girls in Astronomy Program Now Accepting Applications
The Women and Girls in Astronomy Program (WGAP), led by Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), under the North American Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (NA-ROAD) has been awarded a three-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to expand its impact.