Astronomers have discovered a bright object in the sky, the nature of which they cannot yet explain
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Researchers have discovered a bright object that rotates slowly, at a distance of 15 thousand light years from Earth and does not lend itself to any logical explanation offered by astronomers. This is reported by Live science. The object is similar to a magnetar – a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, which is more than a quadrillion times stronger than Earth’s. Usually, radio pulses stop completely after several months or years. The magnetar’s rotation slows down to a point called the “death line”—the theoretical threshold at which the star’s magnetic field becomes too weak to generate more high-energy radiation. However, for more than 30 years, this recently discovered magnetar has been flaring with constant bright radiation from beyond the “border of death”. A magnetar that emits blue jets of radio energy into space. Photo: ICRAR) “The object we discovered is rotating too slowly to produce radio waves – it is on the verge of dying,” said Natasha Gurley-Walker, a radio astronomer at Australia’s International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and lead author of the new study of the object. If the scientists’ hypotheses are confirmed, this magnetar may represent a new class of stellar objects that contradicts all current theoretical models. Scientists first discovered a stable magnetar – GPM J1839−10 – in September 2022. Observations have shown that the object pulses with bright radio waves every 22 minutes. It glows intensely for about 5 minutes and dims again. Most radio-emitting magnetars pulse every few seconds or minutes. The 22-minute cycle of this object is the longest magnetar pulsation period ever discovered. This ultra-long cycle also suggests that the magnetar was rotating extremely slowly – beyond the point of death. To learn more about the mysterious object, the researchers compared the observations with data from radio telescopes around the world, and also studied archival data dating back to 1988. They saw that the same object appears in the oldest data set, pulsating at almost the same 22-minute interval for the past 33 years. Special qualities – the object’s slow rotation, its extremely long pulse period and the extraordinary duration of its radio emission regime – do not lend themselves to all imposed models, the researchers write. Scientists suggest that it is quite possible that the object is not a magnetar at all. It could be a white dwarf – another type of stellar remnant – that is much larger than a magnetar and rotates more slowly. However, the team added, the object’s radio emission is at least 1,000 times brighter than the brightest white dwarf ever discovered. “This remarkable object challenges our understanding of neutron stars and magnetars, which are among the most exotic and extreme objects in the universe. Whatever the mechanism behind this is, it’s extraordinary,” Hurley-Walker said. It will be recalled that scientists have discovered the star J0927, which is “running away” from the Milky Way with an amazing speed – 2285 kilometers per second. Read also: Boomerang stone: scientists analyzed a meteorite that allegedly flew into space and returned to Earth
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