A new mysterious object in our galaxy
In the galaxy, the milky way, the home of mankind, there are hundreds of mysterious objects. Consider the nearly 1,000 bizarre fibers (or strands of wire) that were just announced last week in the center of the Milky Way. Some are more than 150 light-years away from Earth. In the second half of January 2022, astronomers said they had spotted another mysterious object. The discovery was more like a star-shaped object, but not like anything astronomers had seen before. One of them flashed for 1 minute, went off for nearly 18 minutes, and then cycled back and forth again. So much fun! That's what we know so far.
Astronomers call such objects transients. The azimuth mentioned above is in the direction of the constellation of the Ruler, in the starry sky of the Southern Hemisphere. In any case, this transient emitted a radio wave across the Earth. It is one of the brightest radio wave sources in the night sky, appearing about three times per hour.
Sometimes, the demise of a star produces what astronomers call a slow-motion transient. They glow for the first few days and then disappear after a few months. Supernovae, for example, are a kind of easing transients.
The demise of other stars leads to fast-moving transients. A neutron star called a pulsar also emits a beam of light, allowing us to see it flicker. But pulsars flicker very fast, within milliseconds or seconds.
So you might notice that the brightness period of this new object is somewhere between slow and fast. Its flicker time measure is not measured in days, nor in seconds... But in minutes, very novel.
The scientists who study it are part of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). The peer-reviewed journal Nature published its findings on Jan. 26.
Mysterious objects visible in radio waves
Tyrone O'Doherty was (and is) a student at Curtin University in Western Australia, and while he was pursuing his PhD, he discovered this novel scintillating object. He was using a new technology that he had developed through Australia's radio telescope, the Murchison Wide-Field Array, and stumbled upon a new object. O'Doherty said:
It's so exciting that the new object I discovered last year is so strange!
It's very exciting, especially for a student like me who is just starting out studying astronomy. Astronomers found the object to flicker like other transient objects, but in a way they had never seen before. Natasha Hurley-Walker, lead author of ICRAR and Curtin University, said:
During our observation, the object recurred and disappeared for several hours. It was very unexpected, and even for astronomers, it was a bit creepy because nothing else in the sky was known to be like that. It was really close to us: about 4,000 light-years away, as if it were right in the backyard of the Milky Way.
What exactly is this mysterious object?
All objects in space are spinning. So it's safe to say that this new object is also spinning, and as the beam sweeps across the Earth, that beam appears in front of us in the form of radio waves. Astronomers believe the object rotates on a time scale of minutes. But how did this come about?
The team of scientists already has some ideas about what the new object is. They believe the object resembles the collapsing core of a star. Stellar debris can turn into neutron stars or white dwarfs. Says Gemma Anderson of Curtin University and ICRAR:
When studying transients, you are observing the demise of a massive star or the activity of the remnants it leaves behind.
As for why it's flickering on the time scale of the minute... We don't know yet.
A strong magnetic field
One indication is that this mysterious new object appears to have a super-strong magnetic field. This super-bright object is smaller than the sun and emits highly polarized radio waves. It is these polarized radio waves that hint to us that it has a very strong magnetic field.
Astronomers have predicted that such an unusual object could exist, which they call a super-long-period magnetostar. Dr Hurley-Walker of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Australia said:
It has been predicted that this is a slowly rotating neutron star that theoretically exists. But no one thought we could detect such stars directly, because we didn't expect them to be so bright. It somehow converts magnetic energy into radio waves, which is much more effective than anything we've seen before.
Artists believe that this mysterious object is a magnetar. Magnetars are supermagnetic neutron stars that sometimes produce radio radiation. The magnetar spins quickly, turning every few seconds. But there may also be "ultra-long-period magnetars" that spin much more slowly. Image from ICRAR.
Look for more mysterious objects
The mysterious object appeared in astronomers' data for only three months before disappearing completely. Astronomers are watching its reappearance closely. At the same time, they are looking for more similar objects. Dr Hurley-Walker of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Australia said:
Whether this is a rare one-time event or a huge new group that we have never noticed before, more probes will tell us the final answer.
Astronomers are looking forward to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope coming into service within the next decade. It will be the world's largest radio telescope, helping astronomers uncover more mysterious objects in the universe.
Summary: Astronomers have discovered a new mysterious object that emits bright radio waves three times per hour for about a minute.
BY：Kelly Kizer Whitt
FY：Astronomical volunteer team
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