According to the US "Business Insider" website, the team of Ziteng Wang, a doctor of physics at the University of Sydney, combed through the data obtained by australia's square kilometer array pathfinder (ASKAP) in 2020. The team has detected 2 million objects with telescopes and classified each, but a signal source at the center of the Milky Way galaxy has baffled computers and researchers.
Infographic (Visual China)
It is reported that the object has emitted powerful radio waves throughout 2020 - 6 signals have been observed in 9 months, and its irregularity and extremely high degree of signal polarization are unprecedented for researchers. Even stranger, the researchers found no counterpart in the X-ray, visible, or near-infrared bands. After that, the researchers also lost the radio signal, although they searched for months with two different radio telescopes.
But about a year after it was first discovered, the radio wave suddenly reappeared, but less than a day later, it disappeared again.
Australian ASKAP (screenshot of the report)
Tara Murphy, a professor at the University of Sydney, Wang Ziteng's doctoral supervisor, told Business Insider: "Unfortunately, we don't quite know what this behaviour is. ”
It's becoming increasingly clear to researchers, though, that this isn't an ordinary dead star. They conclude that the discovery may belong to a rare category of mysterious signal sources from the galactic core, known as the Galactic Center Radio Transient (GCRT). Prior to this discovery, humans had only discovered three such objects.
Murphy noted: "GCRT is a 'temporary placeholder name' and we're actually trying to figure out what they are. Murphy, on the other hand, is "100 percent convinced" that these signals are not coming from aliens, because technological signals will cover a narrower frequency range, like human radio broadcasts.
Artist's Impression of a Mysterious Radio Signal from the Center of the Milky Way (Screenshot of the Report)
GCRT has been a mystery for decades. No one knows what type of star emits these unique signals, and each GCRT is different, leading the researchers to believe that the four signals did not come from the same type of object.
Scott Hyman, who led the study of the previous three GCRTs, said any new findings "add to the entire body of knowledge, reinforce or complement what we already know, or really could lead to revolutionary new perceptions." ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Qin Hong Text Editor: Lu Xiaochuan Caption Source: Visual China Photo Editor: Zhu Xuan
Source: Author: Global Times