India, Sept. 19 -- A team of astronomers from Pune's National Centre for Radio Astrophysics-Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR) has discovered the first pulsar in the ancient star cluster Messier 80 (M80) using India's upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) near Pune. The star cluster is also called NGC 6093. The pulsar, named PSR J1617-2258A, spins 232 times every second and orbits with a small companion star.

The discovery is part of new Globular Clusters GMRT Pulsar Search (GCGPS) project involving scientists from NCRA-TIFR (India), the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (Germany), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (USA), and the University of Oxford (UK).

The result was published in the Astrophy...