What’s that strange object sending signals to Earth?
Do you ever find yourself captivated by all things bright and beautiful when you look up at the cosmos? There’s a new twist to this age-old fascination. Australian scientists discovered an unknown spinning object in the Milky Way galaxy. It released periodic bursts of radio energy out in the western Australia outback. Over a 24-hour period, they observed the object giving off bursts of radio energy about every 18 minutes over several hours before disappearing. Their findings were published in the journal ‘Nature’(opens in new window).
Wishing on a blinking star
“It’s mind-bogglingly wonderful that the universe is still full of surprises,” lead author and astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Australia told ‘Euronews’(opens in new window). Even though this mysterious celestial object is one of the brightest points in the sky, it’s invisible to the naked eye. The object was found by Curtin University honours and PhD student Tyrone O’Doherty with a telescope called Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and a new method he developed. “It’s exciting that the source I identified last year has turned out to be such a peculiar object,” said O’Doherty in an ICRAR press release(opens in new window). “The MWA’s wide field of view and extreme sensitivity are perfect for surveying the entire sky and detecting the unexpected.”
“Spooky” space object
Objects that turn on and off are common events in the universe. They have been seen before by astronomers emitting bursts of radio signs, but usually for seconds or milliseconds, not longer. “This object was appearing and disappearing over a few hours during our observations,” explained Dr Hurley-Walker in the press release. “That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there’s nothing known in the sky that does that. And it’s really quite close to us—about 4000 lightyears away. It’s in our galactic backyard.” The team will continue to monitor the object to see whether it turns back on. Team members continue to search for evidence of other similar objects. “More detections will tell astronomers whether this was a rare one-off event or a vast new population we’d never noticed before,” commented Dr Hurley-Walker. More research is needed to figure out what the object is and what is causing the bursts of energy. Do unexplained or unusual signals from space make you wonder if we’re alone, if we should finally be getting ready for close encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence? “It’s definitely not aliens,” she stated in ‘The Guardian’(opens in new window). The team of scientists believe it could be a type of dead star.
Keywords
object, signal, radio signal, radio energy, energy, star, astronomer, astronomy