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CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. '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.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. '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.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. '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.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Are aliens trying to contact Earth? Scientists are BAFFLED by a mysterious cosmic object emitting radio waves AND X-rays
In the dark realms of space, about 14,700 light-years away from our planet, an unusual object is doing something unexpected. A cosmic entity called ASKAP J1832-0911 is emitting joint pulses of radio waves and X-rays for two minutes every 44 minutes. This is the first time an object like this, called a long-period transient (LPT), has been detected emitting X-rays. Currently, there is no clear explanation for what causes these signals, or why they 'switch on' and 'switch off' at such long, regular and unusual intervals. Experts admit even their best theories do not account for what they're seeing, as it challenges the rules of physics. And they said it could mean ASKAP J1832-0911 is an entirely new class of object that humans have never detected before. The cosmic phenomenon is located deep in the Galactic Plane, in a region that is densely filled with stars, gas and dust. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Dr Andy Wang, from Curtin University in Australia. His team discovered the phenomenon by using the ASKAP radio telescope on Wajarri Country in Australia, owned and operated by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO. They correlated the radio signals with X-ray pulses detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was coincidentally observing the same part of the sky. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Dr Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. 'So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' LPTs, which emit radio pulses that occur minutes or hours apart, are a relatively recent discovery. Since their first detection by researchers in 2022, a total of 10 have been discovered by astronomers across the world. '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,' Dr Wang explained. '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. 'What makes this more interesting is that the X-ray also follows the same 44-minute cycle. 'This object currently does not match any known sources in our galaxy, so we need further observations to help us pin down what exactly is going on.' The finding also helps narrow down what the objects might be, the team said. Since X-rays are much higher energy than radio waves, any theory must account for both types of emission – a valuable clue, given their nature remains a cosmic mystery. So far, ASKAP J1832-0911 is the only LPT detected with an X-ray signal. The X-ray pulses offer direct evidence of compact object characteristics, while the radio waves point to an organised and structured magnetic field, the researchers explained. Second author Professor Nanda Rea, from the Institute of Space Science and Catalan Institute for Space studies in Spain, added: 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.' WHAT ARE NEUTRON STARS? Neutron stars are the collapsed, burnt-out cores of dead stars. When large stars reach the end of their lives, their core will collapse, blowing off the outer layers of the star. This leaves an extremely dense object known as a neutron star, which squashes more mass than is contained in the sun into the size of a city. A neutron star typically would have a mass that's perhaps half-a-million times the mass of the Earth, but they're only about 20 kilometres (12 miles) across. A handful of material from this star would weigh as much as Mount Everest. They are very hot, perhaps a million degrees, highly radioactive, and have incredibly intense magnetic fields. This makes them arguably the most hostile environments in the Universe today, according to Professor Patrick Sutton, head of Cardiff University's gravitational physics department. The dense objects, in particular their cores, are key to our understanding of the universe's heavy elements.
