Something is flashing at us from space – and scientists have no idea what it is
Scientists have been left stunned by a mysterious, regular signal that is flashing at us from deep in space.
The new type of cosmic phenomenon has only become more mysterious with further examination, scientists say.
The object in question is 15,000 light years from Earth and is known as ASKAP J1832-0911. It sends out pulses of radio waves and X-rays on a regular schedule: for two minutes, every 44 minutes.
It was found with an Australian telescope that spotted radio signals coming from a specific part of space. Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory was coincidentally looking at that same part of space – and found that the object was emitting X-rays as well as radio pulses.
It is the first time that one of these mysterious objects, known as an LPT, has been spotted sending out X-rays as well as radio signals.
The researchers on a new study say that the object is 'unlike anything we have seen before' and that it could be an unknown kind of object or even a new type of physics.
LPTs, or long-period transients, were first found in 2022, and researchers have spotted ten of them since. They send out radio pulses in regular bursts that are minutes or hours apart.
ASKAP J1832 is not only unusual for its X-ray behaviour, however. Over the months they watched it, scientists also noted that the X-rays and radio waves dropped off – something they have never seen before in our Milky Way galaxy.
Researchers don't know what the object at the heart of them might be. There is no explanation for either what the signal is or why it is flashing in such a regular way.
'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Dr Ziteng Wang from Curtin University.
'ASKAP J1831-0911 could be a magnetar (the core of a dead star with powerful magnetic fields), or it could be a pair of stars in a binary system where one of the two is a highly magnetised white dwarf (a low-mass star at the end of its evolution).'
'However, even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution.'
Scientists hope that the discovery that the object is emitting X-rays too could help give some insight on where the signals are coming from and how they work.
'We will continue to hunt for clues about what is happening with this object, and we'll look for similar objects,' said co-author Dr Tong Bao of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics ( INAF) – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy. 'Finding a mystery like this isn't frustrating – it's what makes science exciting!'
The work is reported in a new paper, 'Detection of X-ray Emission from a Bright Long-Period Radio Transient', published in the journal Nature.
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