Mysterious rotating object found in the Milky Way emitting radio waves every 18 minutes
Date 28 Jan 2022 time 10:55
Aussie scientists have found a strange spinning object in the Milky Way, pointing to nothing like anything they’ve seen before.
Scientists in Australia have found a strange rotating object in the Milky Way. which astronomers have never seen before And it also emits strong radio energy every 18.8 minutes, or three times an hour.
The strange object was first seen by Curtin University student Tyrone Odoherty in March 2018 from the Murchison Widefield Array Radio Telescope in the countryside. Far of Western Australia using a new technique that he invented himself
Later, a team of scientists led by Natasha Hurley-Walker. astrophysicists from the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), including Odoherty. continue to study this mystery object
Hurley-Walker revealed that “It appeared and disappeared over the course of the few hours we were observing. which is much beyond expectation It’s pretty scary for astronomers. because there has never been anything we know in the sky that has done this.”
Hurley-Walker also revealed that “If you compute it, it is unlikely that any object will have enough energy to emit radio waves every 20 minutes.”
From reviewing data going back many years The team concluded that the strange object is about 4,000 light-years from Earth and is very bright and has a strong magnetic field.
Astronomers set up various theories. about this object, for example, it could be a neutron star A white dwarf, a term used to refer to the fragments of a star that burst. But even so, many things are still a mystery.
But Hurley-Walker said It shouldn’t be Because astronomers know only one white dwarf pulsar. And nothing is as powerful as this mysterious object, adding, “It could certainly be something we never thought of before. It could be a new object.”
And when asked if it was possible for this powerful radio signal to be transmitted from another form of life, Hurley-Walker replied: “I thought it was an alien,” but the team was able to capture the wave from a variety of frequencies. “It means that it is a natural process. It’s not a synthetic signal.
The results of the study were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Photo by Natasha Hurley-Walker / various sources / AFP