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Radio waves from space: Research team discovers unknown pulsating celestial object

2022-01-27T10:40:25.940Z


“Somehow scary”, but no aliens: Australian scientists have measured strange signals 4,000 light-years away. It may be a new class of neutron star.


Enlarge image

This image shows the Milky Way.

The star icon on the right marks the location of the strange new celestial object.

Photo: Curtin / ICRAR

4,000 light-years from Earth, some 38 trillion kilometers away, an unknown celestial object from our galaxy is periodically emitting electromagnetic waves.

It pulsates.

Only: What is it?

Scientists from Australia came across this question in 2018.

At that time, a student discovered the signals, which were repeated every 18 minutes.

The energy waves were measured over a period of three months.

Then they disappeared again.

A galactic lighthouse

The explanation, which the team has now published in the journal »Nature«, is as follows: the unknown object may be a new class of slowly rotating, very bright neutron stars with an extremely strong magnetic field.

The object's radio wave signal, which can be thought of like a galactic lighthouse, lasts 30 to 60 seconds at a time.

A comparable pulse rate has not yet been observed.

The fact that the signals disappeared again indicates that they are related to a dramatic, one-off event, perhaps a star quake.

"It was kind of scary for an astronomer, because there's nothing in the sky that does that," said Natasha Hurley-Walker of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Australia.

Hurley-Walker leads the team that made the discovery.

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According to their own statements, the researchers quickly rejected the idea that the unusual object was an indication of extraterrestrial life, of a technologically advanced civilization.

Because the team had found that the signal - one of the brightest radio sources in the sky - was detectable over a wide frequency spectrum.

An immense amount of energy would have been required to create it.

"They're definitely not aliens," Hurley-Walker said.

Also speaking against the alien thesis is that the existence of such an object – an “ultra-long-period magnetar” – can be explained astronomically.

It's just that no one expected to see such a star directly, Hurley-Walker said, "because we didn't expect them to be that bright."

Normally, the signal weakens as the neutron star loses energy

A neutron star is what astronomers call the dark, dense remnant left behind when a supermassive star collapses after a supernova.

Shrunk to the size of a small town, such a neutron star initially rotates extremely quickly.

It flashes up and down in milliseconds or seconds.

Over time, the neutron star then loses energy and slows down.

And actually his signal should be weakening.

more on the subject

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Why the newly discovered object - if it is a magnetar - still emitted enough energy to be detectable is not yet clear.

"Somehow it converts the magnetic energy into radio waves much more effectively than anything we've seen before," says Hurley-Walker.

The scientists now hope to gain more clarity about the mysterious celestial object and its origin with further observations.

vki

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2022-01-27

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