This month, Space Connect reported how researchers operating the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in NSW used an athletics-style method to measure the speed of neutron star jets.

The international team timed the phenomenon like a “100-metre sprinter” to record that it travelled at 114,000 kilometres per second – one-third the speed of light.

In this episode, Tom Russell, who led the research, talks through the mysterious jets and how they developed a new way to track them.

Plus, he discusses why the ATCA telescope is still such a pioneering machine and what the future of the research holds.