According to Australian experts, a weird spinning object in the Milky Way has been identified that is unlike anything astronomers have ever seen.
The object, which was first discovered by a university student working on his undergraduate thesis, emits a massive burst of radio energy three times each hour.
The pulse occurs “every 18.18 minutes, like clockwork,” said to astrophysicist Natasha Hurley-Walker, who headed the inquiry after the student was discovered using the Murchison Widefield Array telescope in Western Australia’s outback.
While other phenomena in the universe, such as pulsars, can turn on and off, Hurley-Walker claims that the frequency of 18.18 minutes has never been detected previously.
“For an astronomer, it’s kind of terrifying,” she added, “because there’s nothing known in the sky that does that.”
The crew is now trying to figure out what they’ve discovered.
They were able to establish a few facts after sifting through years of data: the object is around 4,000 light-years from Earth, is extraordinarily bright, and has a very strong magnetic field.
However, there are still many mysteries to solve.
“If you do all the arithmetic, they shouldn’t be able to produce these kinds of radio waves every 20 minutes,” Hurley-Walker said.
“It shouldn’t be possible at all.”
The item could be a “ultra-long period magnetar,” something experts have theorised but never witnessed.
It could possibly be a white dwarf, a relic of a star that has imploded.
“But that’s also unique; we only know of one white dwarf pulsar, and it’s nothing like this,” Hurley-Walker added.
“I was frightened that it was aliens,” Hurley-Walker admitted when asked if the powerful, steady radio signal from space was sent by some other life form.
The scientific team, on the other hand, was able to observe the signal throughout a wide frequency range.
Hurley-Walker explains, “That means it has to be a natural process, not a man-made signal.”
The researchers’ next step is to scan the universe for other odd items.
“More detections will tell astronomers whether this was a one-off event or a massive new population we hadn’t observed previously,” Hurley-Walker added.
