The astronomers that map radio waves in Universe, discovered a mysterious object in our galaxy, which for a period of time emitted a gigantic amount of energy three times an hour. It is unlike anything astronomers have seen before, although they have ruled out the possibility that it is an extraterrestrial artifact.
One possible explanation, according to the scientists who found it, is that it is a neutron star or a white dwarf star with an extremely powerful magnetic field. As it spun through space, the unusual object emitted a powerful beam of radiation that was visible from Earth for one minute every 20 minutes, at which point it became one of the brightest radio sources in the sky.
The researchers, led by astrophysicist Natasha Hurley-Walker of Curtin University in Australia and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), who published their findings in the journal Nature, made the discovery using the MWA telescope in Western Australia.
As Hurley-Walker said, «The object appeared and disappeared during the few hours of our observations. It was something completely unexpected. It was strange for an astronomer, because there is nothing known in the sky that does such a thing. And in fact, it is really quite close to us, about 4,000 light-years away, in our galactic “backyard”.».
Astrophysicist Gemma Anderson said that something that becomes bright for a minute every few minutes is really strange. The mysterious object, she said, is incredibly bright and smaller than the Sun, emitting highly polarized radio waves, which indicates that it has a very strong magnetic field.
Researchers believe that its «profile» matches that of a «very long period magnetar,» a slowly rotating neutron star that had been predicted theoretically but never before observed. According to Dr. Hurley-Walker, «it somehow converts its magnetic energy into radio waves much more efficiently than anything we've seen before,» which explains its incredible brightness. Astronomers are on alert to see if the object will start flashing again.
