A mysterious energy source that astronomers have never seen before

news/tmb/2022/mysterious-object-unli-1.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2022/mysterious-object-unli-1.jpg" data-sub-html="An artist's impression of what the object might look like if it's a magnetar. Magnetars are incredibly magnetic neutron stars, some of which sometimes produce radio emission. Known magnetars rotate every few seconds, but theoretically, "ultra-long period magnetars" could rotate much more slowly. Credit: ICRAR.">

An artist’s impression of what an object might look like if it were magnetic. Magnetars are incredibly magnetic neutron stars, some of which sometimes produce radio emissions. Known magnetic stars rotate every few seconds, but in theory, “extra-long-period magnetic stars” could rotate more slowly. Credit: ICRAR.

A team mapping radio waves in the universe has discovered something unusual that releases a giant burst of energy three times an hour, unlike anything astronomers have seen before.


The team that discovered it thinks it could be a neutron star or white dwarf — the cores of collapsed stars — with an ultra-strong magnetic field. Spinning in space, the UFO sends a beam of radiation that crosses Earth’s line of sight and, with a duration of 1 minute in 20, is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky.

Astrophysicist Dr. Natasha Hurley Walker, of Curtin University’s Center for International Radio Astronomy Research, led the team that made the discovery. “This object would appear and disappear within a few hours during our observations,” she said. “It was completely unexpected. It was kind of scary for an astronomer because nothing known in the sky does that. And it’s very close to us – about 4,000 light-years away. It’s in our galaxy’s backyard.”

The object was discovered by Curtin University student Tyrone O’Doherty using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in the Western Australian outback and a new technology he developed. “It’s exciting that the source I identified last year is something of an outlier,” said O’Doherty, who is now studying for his Ph.D. in Curtin. “MWA’s wide field of view and extreme sensitivity are perfect for scanning the entire sky and discovering the unexpected.”

news/tmb/2022/mysterious-object-unli.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2022/mysterious-object-unli.jpg" data-sub-html="Tile 107, or “the Outlier” as it is known, is one of 256 tiles of the MWA located 1.5km from the core of the telescope. The MWA is a precursor instrument to the SKA. Credit: Photographed by Pete Wheeler, ICRAR">

Tile 107, or “outside” as it’s known, is one of 256 pieces of MWA located within 1.5 kilometers of the telescope’s core. MWA is a precursor to SKA. Credit: Pete Wheeler Photography, ICRAR

Objects that turn on and off in the universe are nothing new to astronomers—they call them transients. ICRAR-Curtin astrophysicist and co-author Dr.

Slow transients such as supernovae may appear over a few days and disappear after a few months. Fast transits, such as a type of neutron star called a pulsar, flash on and off within milliseconds or seconds. But Dr. Anderson said finding something that was turned on for a minute was really weird. She said the mysterious object was incredibly bright and smaller than the Sun, and emit highly polarized radio waves – indicating that the object had an extremely strong magnetic field.

Dr. Hurley Walker said the observations matched up with a predicted astrophysical object called a magnetar with a very long period. “It’s the kind of slowly rotating neutron star that theoretically would be expected,” she said. “But no one expected it to be detected like this firsthand because we didn’t expect it to be so bright. Somehow magnetic energy is converted into radio waves more effectively than anything we’ve seen before.”

news/tmb/2022/mysterious-object-unli-2.jpg" data-src="https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2022/mysterious-object-unli-2.jpg" data-sub-html="The Milky Way as viewed from Earth. The star icon shows the position of the mysterious repeating transient. Credit: Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker (ICRAR/Curtin).">
A UFO unlike anything astronomers have seen before

The Milky Way as seen from Earth. The star icon shows the position of the transient fuzzy repetition. Credit: Dr. Natasha Hurley Walker (ICRAR/Curtin).

Dr. Hurley-Walker is now monitoring the object with MWA to see if it will turn on again. “If that happens, there are telescopes across the southern hemisphere and even in orbit that can point directly at it,” she said.

Dr. Hurley Walker plans to search for more of these unusual things in the vast archives of MWA. “Further discoveries will tell astronomers whether this is a rare one-time event or a large population that we haven’t observed before,” she said.

MWA Director Professor Stephen Tingay said the telescope is a precursor to the Square Kilometer Array – a global initiative to build the world’s largest radio telescopes in Western Australia and South Africa. “The key to finding this object, and studying its detailed properties, is the fact that we have been able to collect and store almost all of the data produced by MWA over the past decade at the Pawsey Research Supercomputing Center. Huge data set when you find something very unique in astronomy.” “There are, without a doubt, many gems to be discovered by MWA and SKA in the coming years.”

The Murchison-Widefield Array is located at the Murchison Radio Astronomy Observatory in Western Australia. The observatory is managed by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and was established with the support of the Australian and Western Australian governments. We acknowledge that the Wajarri Yamatji are the traditional owners of the observatory site.


Strange radio waves appear from the direction of the center of the galaxy


more information:

Natasha Hurley Walker, radio transient with unusually slow periodic emission, temper nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038 / s41586-021-04272-x. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04272-x

Presented by the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research

the quote: A mysterious energy source unlike anything astronomers have seen before (2022, Jan 26) Retrieved Jan 26, 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-01-mysterious-energy-source-astronomers.html

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