Astronomers have discovered a flickering object in the center of the universe that emits enormous amounts of energy three times an hour.
Researchers wrote in a statement that the object is unlike any other structure in the universe.
The object in question appeared out of the blue on a recent radio wave. According to the researchers, GLEAM suddenly became one of the brighter objects in the sky, then disappeared into darkness again. The object reappeared about 20 minutes later, glowing to peak brightness, before fading back to nothing a minute later.
Magnetars should freak you out.
Transients are objects that appear and disappear before our telescopes. Transients can be either a dying star, a supernova, or the corpse of an already-dead star. Researchers wrote in the new study that neither of the standard explanations fit with the behavior of the newfound object.
It is possible that the mysterious GLEAM is evidence of a new type of stellar object that has only been speculated about until now.
During our observations, this object was appearing and disappearing. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there was nothing known in the sky.
Transients can come in two varieties, and can disappear after a few months. These include supernovas, which blaze brightly as dying stars shed their outer atmospheres in violent explosions, then gradually dim as the stellar leftovers drop in temperature.
Fast Transients flicker on and off every few milliseconds. These include objects like pulsars, which flash with bright radio emissions when a dead star has a magnetic field.
The authors of the new study were looking for Transients like these using the MWA radio telescope. The on-off blinking is too fast to be a supernova and too slow to be a pulsar, the researchers said.
An analysis of the object showed that it was bright but small. According to the study authors, the radio emissions were generated by a powerful magnetic field that vibrated light waves only on a single plane.
These characteristics are similar to a type of theoretical object that is a highly magnetized neutron star that rotates incredibly slowly. This class of object has never been seen in space before.
It is converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more effectively than we have seen before.
The researchers said that there may be other explanations for the mystery. It could be a rare type of white dwarf star, which can only emit radio emissions by sucking in material from a companion star. If the star rotates at the right speed, it will appear to pulse.
There are other bands of the spectrum that are needed to solve the mystery. The researchers are looking into archival observations from the MWA to see if there are any similar objects.
The study was published in the journal Nature.
It was originally published on Live Science.
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