Astronomers may have uncovered the secret behind a mysterious object that intermittently disappears and reappears 15,000 light-years away.
The strange celestial body was found emitting radio waves every 22 minutes – a much longer gap than seen in similar objects, such as pulsars or magnetars, the ghostly remnants of dead stars. All known magnetars release energy at intervals ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes.
However, an international team led by astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) believes the new object, 15,000 light-years away, could be a rare type of magnetar – challenging our understanding of the physics of neutron stars.
They suggest it could be an ultra-long period magnetar, a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy
Astronomers discovered the object using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a radio telescope on Wajarri Yamaji Country in outback Western Australia.
Similar to black holes, neutron stars are formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses. The main difference is that a neutron star has a hard surface, unlike that of a black hole.
Lead author Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker said the magnetar, named GPM J1839−10, is found in the Scutum constellation.
‘This remarkable object challenges our understanding of neutron stars and magnetars, which are some of the most exotic and extreme objects in the Universe,’ she said.
The stellar object is only the second of its kind ever detected. The first was discovered by Curtin University undergraduate research student Tyrone O’Doherty.
Initially, scientists could not explain what they had found. They published a paper in Nature in January 2022 describing an enigmatic transient object that would intermittently appear and disappear, emitting powerful beams of energy three times an hour.
Dr Hurley-Walker – O’Doherty’s honours supervisor – said the first object took us by surprise.
‘We were stumped,’ she said. ‘So we started searching for similar objects to find out if it was an isolated event or just the tip of the iceberg.’
Between July and September 2022, the team scanned the skies using the MWA telescope. They soon found what they were looking for in GPM J1839−10.
It emits bursts of energy that last up to five minutes – five times longer than the first object.
Other telescopes around the world followed up to confirm the discovery and learn more about the object’s unique characteristics.
These included three CSIRO radio telescopes in Australia, the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, the Grantecan (GTC) 10m telescope, and the XMM-Newton space telescope.
Armed with GPM J1839−10’s celestial coordinates and characteristics, the team also began searching the observational archives of the world’s best radio telescopes.
They found that the object showed up in observations by telescopes in India and the USA dating as far back as 1988.
‘That was quite an incredible moment for me. I was five years old when our telescopes first recorded pulses from this object, but no one noticed it, and it stayed hidden in the data for 33 years,’ said Dr Hurley-Walker.
‘They missed it because they hadn’t expected to find anything like it.’
Scientists are still stumped by the object’s behaviour as a magnetar shouldn’t be possible to produce five-minute pulses of radio waves every 22 minutes.
The research team plans to conduct further observations of the magnetar to learn more about its properties and behaviour.
They also hope to discover more of these enigmatic objects in the future, to determine whether they are indeed ultra-long period magnetars, or something even more phenomenal.
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