A mysterious radio signal
coming from the heart of an ancient star cluster in the Milky Way, 14,500 light years from the Sun, was detected by an Italian expert.
It could have been emitted by a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star, or by a medium-sized black hole, a rare type of black hole that
has never been observed before
and would therefore represent an important discovery.
The site contains more than a million stars and is the second most luminous place on the planet (Michael Joner and David Laney).
The signal is described in the study published in the journal The
Astrophysical Journal
and was led by the Italian Alessandro Paduano, from the Australian International Center for Radio Astronomy Research, at Curtin University in Australia.
Researchers detected the mysterious signal while examining the globular cluster called
47 Tucanae
with the Australia Telescope Compact Array, a radio telescope operated by the Australian Government Agency for Scientific Research.
There are more than 1 million stars there.
Globular clusters are
ancient groupings of stars
scattered throughout the Milky Way.
47 Tucanae, in particular,
contains more than a million stars
in a sphere with a diameter of only 120 light years and is the second brightest cluster in the sky.
Thanks to
450 hours of observation
, the authors of the study obtained the most detailed radio image of the cluster, also discovering the unusual signal coming from its interior.
The team identified the radio source (white square) in the center of the cluster (red circle) (Paduano et al).
"Although intermediate-mass black holes, the missing link between those generated by supernova explosions and the gigantic objects observed at the centers of galaxies, are believed to exist in globular clusters, none have yet been clearly identified," he said. Paduan.
"If this signal turns out to be a black hole (added the Italian researcher) it would be a very significant discovery and the first radioelectric detection of a black hole within a cluster."
ANSA Agency.
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