Latest news with #InternationalCentreForRadioAstronomyResearch
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Spot Mysterious Object in Our Galaxy Pulsing Every 44 Minutes
Astronomers have spotted something strange and spectacular: a mysterious object that keeps emitting pulses every 44 minutes. In a press release from Australia's Curtin University, which was part of the international team that detected the object just 15,000 light-years away in our Milky Way galaxy, astronomers explained that the find was all the more stunning because the signal is coming in the form of both X-rays and radio waves. The object, which was named ASKAP J1832-0911 after Australia's ASKAP radio telescope that was used to detect it, was discovered emitting two-minute-long pulses that would pause and then repeat 44 minutes later. As the Curtin press release explains, the researchers lucked out when they realized that NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was observing the same part of the sky and detected the same repeating signal in X-ray form. This dual-natured pulse belongs to a newly-discovered class of space phenomena known as "long-period radio transients," or LPTs for short. Discovered in 2022 by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research — which also sponsored this latest study — these mystery pulses have unknown origins and occur in fixed intervals of minutes or hours. They're considered by astronomers to be remarkably slow as compared to the signals emitted by pulsars, those rapidly-rotating stars that send out similar bursts every few milliseconds when their poles point in Earth's direction. In the years since they were first discovered, astronomers around the world have only detected some 10 other LPTs — but before now, none have been run through X-ray telescopes as well. According to Ziteng "Andy" Wang, an ICRAR-affiliated Curtin astronomer and the lead author a paper about the finding that was just published in the journal Nature, discovering the dual nature of LPTs in such a coincidental manner "felt like finding a needle in a haystack." "The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it," Wang explained in the Curtin press release. "So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time." Because LPTs are such a new phenomenon to astronomers, they can't say for sure what causes them. When the first of them were discovered, astronomers posited that they could be coming from magnetars, a type of neutron star with extremely strong magnetic fields that also emit radio pulses at faster intervals, leading to the ICRAR team positing that they may have an "ultra-long-period magnetar" on their hands. While the magnetar theory appears to have been scrapped, the astronomers behind this update in LPT knowledge are hopeful that it will help them figure out what these strange, slow pulses are about. "This object is unlike anything we have seen before," said Wang. More on strange space: Scientists Startled by Discovery of Small Star Swimming Through Outer Layers of Another Larger Star
Forbes
6 days ago
- General
- Forbes
44-Minute Pulse From Mystery Star Baffles Scientists — What To Know
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving new clues about the ... More origin of a class of mysterious objects. This object, known as ASKAP J1832, shows regular changes in both radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes, the first time such variations have been seen for a class of objects discovered only three years ago. Scientists have discovered a unique star 15,000 light-years from the solar system that appears to pulse every 44.2 minutes. Separate data from NASA's orbital Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope in Western Australia found the star — named ASKAP J1832 — in 2024, according to the paper published today in Nature. The star is what astronomers call a long-period radio transient, which they have detected since 2022. However, this is the first time such an object has also been observed to emit X-rays. X-ray emission is high-energy electromagnetic radiation, which Earth's atmosphere blocks. Both the radio and X-ray pulses are tightly aligned in phase, so they must be coming from the same object. 'Astronomers have looked at countless stars with all kinds of telescopes, and we've never seen one that acts this way,' said Dr Ziteng Wang, first author of the paper, from the Curtin University node at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Australia. 'It's thrilling to see a new type of behavior for stars.' Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving new clues about the ... More origin of a class of mysterious objects. This object, known as ASKAP J1832, shows regular changes in both radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes, the first time such variations have been seen for a class of objects discovered only three years ago. Long-period radio transients vary in the intensity of their radio waves in a regular way over tens of minutes, but this is by far the longest ever found. The discovery suggests that these strange objects can be significantly more energetic than previously believed. First observed in February 2024, ASKAP J1832 dropped in intensity in both radio waves and X-rays over the following six months, becoming 1,000 times fainter by August 2024. What exactly ASKAP J1832 is remains a mystery. The transient likely harbors a compact object, possibly an ultra-magnetized white dwarf (the dense core left by a star that has exhausted its fuel) or an old magnetar (the extremely dense remnant of a star that has exploded as a supernova). However, scientists cannot fully explain either origin. 'We looked at several different possibilities involving neutron stars and white dwarfs, either in isolation or with companion stars,' said co-author Dr Nanda Rea of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain. 'So far, nothing exactly matches up, but some ideas work better than others.' Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving new clues about the ... More origin of a class of mysterious objects. This object, known as ASKAP J1832, shows regular changes in both radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes, the first time such variations have been seen for a class of objects discovered only three years ago. ASKAP J1832 appears to be within a supernova remnant, but the researchers think that's a coincidence, so it may not be a magnetar. It may be a white dwarf star with a companion star, but only if it had the strongest magnetic field ever known for a white dwarf. '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 – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
