Chinese scientists have detected radio pulses from a central compact object — a class of young, dense dead stars long considered to be entirely “radio-silent.” The breakthrough, achieved after decades of searching, provides crucial evidence for understanding how young stars form and evolve.
The study, conducted by researchers from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, represents the first successful detection of its kind. It establishes a direct observational link between these elusive objects and ordinary radio pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit regular beams of radio waves like cosmic lighthouses. The findings were published in the journal Nature Astronomy on June 26.
Central compact objects, or CCOs, sit at the very center of supernova remnants—the glowing, expanding debris clouds left behind after massive stars explode. While CCOs shine brightly in X-rays, they have shown no signs of radio waves. Despite extensive searches since pulsars were first discovered in 1967 — a breakthrough that spawned two Nobel Prizes in physics — no radio pulses had ever been detected from any CCO, earning them a reputation for being completely silent.
This study finally answers the long-standing question of whether these objects are truly silent or simply too faint to be found by current technology.
Using the highly sensitive MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, the research team targeted multiple CCOs. During the project, Zhang Lei, the study’s first author and a doctoral researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories, detected a faint radio pulse repeating every 424 milliseconds. The signal came from 1E 1207.4−5209, a typical CCO located inside a supernova remnant named PKS 1209−51/52.
Li Di, the study’s corresponding author and a professor at Tsinghua University, named the newly active star the “Blue Eye Pulsar” because combined radio and X-ray images revealed a distinct, eye-like blue shape.
Zhang noted that the discovery was made possible by MeerKAT’s exceptional sensitivity and a specialized observation strategy. The team used extended, targeted tracking and advanced digital processing to filter out cosmic background noise and extract the extremely weak signal.
Additionally, researchers discovered that in 2025, the neutron star underwent a significant “spin glitch”—an abrupt, sudden increase in its rotation speed. Scientists speculate that this sudden shift may have disrupted and reshaped the star’s magnetic environment, effectively turning on or boosting the radio emissions that were previously invisible to observers on Earth. However, the team noted that further long-term monitoring is required to verify this theory.
The discovery challenges the conventional astronomical view that CCOs are natively quiet, proving that even young neutron stars with relatively weak magnetic fields can emit radio pulses. It also suggests that a vast number of faint, young pulsars may still be hidden across the Milky Way.
Previously, this specific celestial body was found to have unique markers in its X-ray light spectrum, which act like a fingerprint for measuring its magnetic field. Finding the Blue Eye Pulsar now allows scientists to study its radio waves, X-rays, and magnetic lines together in a unified way, potentially revealing the complex magnetic structures of these extreme stars.
The team said that next-generation, high-sensitivity radio telescopes — including MeerKAT, China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), and the future Square Kilometre Array — are expected to discover more of these objects, further completing the picture of how stars evolve in the universe’s ultimate deep-space laboratories.
