Astronomers spot ‘spooky’ object in ‘our galactic backyard’

January 27, 2022:

Researchers in Australia said they located a “spooky” item about 4,000 light-years away that mysteriously becomes one of the brightest objects in the sky for about one minute every 20 minutes, according to a report.

Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker, an astrophysicist from Australia’s Curtin University, International Center for Radio Astronomy Research said observing its odd bursts of radiation was a bit spooky because “there’s nothing known in the sky that does that,” Bloomberg reported.

Nova, a white dwarf that assimilates gaseous matter from a neighboring star, suddenly becoming extremely bright before it returns to its initial brightness. (Photo by: QAI Publishing/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
(QAI Publishing/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Phys.org reported that there are theories about what the object could be. The main theory is that the object is a neutron star or white dwarf, which the website identified as “collapsed cores of stars—with an ultra-powerful magnetic field.”

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE ARRIVES AT ORBITAL HOME 1 MILLION MILES FROM EARTH

A meteor of Geminid meteor shower streaks over radio telescopes at Daocheng County in the early morning on December 14, 2021 in Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province of China. (Photo by He Haiyang/VCG via Getty Images)
(He Haiyang/VCG via Getty Images)

Hurley-Walker also pointed out that the object is 4,000 light-years away, which may sound like a long haul, but is seen by astrophysicists as essentially akin to being in our own “galactic backyard.” There are other known objects that flash in space, but this frequency has not been seen.

She said there is a theory about a “slowly spinning neutron star.”

GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“But nobody expected to directly detect one like this because we didn’t expect them to be so bright. Somehow it’s converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more effectively than anything we’ve seen before,” she said.

Source link

tags

Abkhazia Afghanistan Africa Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Curacao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guam Guatemala Guinea Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Northern Cyprus Norway Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Lucia Samoa San Marino Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda UK Ukraine United Arab Emirates Uruguay USA Uzbekistan Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe