For at least 45 years , an target in our galaxy has been emit radio waves every 21 minutes , and uranologist are very disjointed about what could be causing it . The cycles/second is too slow and too brawny to be anything we are familiar with , but too all-encompassing to be the product of a technical refinement . Its discoverer has a lot of ideas on how to look into , but not yet the funding to do most of them .
Last yearDr Natasha Hurley - Walkerof Curtin University and her PhD student Tyrone O’Dohertyannounced the discoveryof something unprecedented in data from 2018 . TheMurchison Widefield Array(MWA ) had picked up radio pulses emitted every 18 minutes on and off for three months by an object that got label ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 . By the clock time Hurley - Walker and O’Doherty went back to look , nothing seemed to be go away on at the germ .
( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 did n’t fit with anything we knew . If it had been faster , it would have been label amagnetar , a type of neutron star whose amazingly knock-down magnetized field causes even radiocommunication pulses . However , the slowest magnetar cycles/second is 76 second gear , whereas this was 1,318 arcsecond . Moreover , magnetars get weaker as they get slower and stargazer regard anything with a bike significantly longer than 100 seconds to be undetectably light .
At the metre Hurley - Walker pop the question a few possible explanations to IFLScience , although she admit nothing really primed . The best way to respond the question , she think , was to find another such object , so she searched MWA data around the galactic woodworking plane for something similar .
Now Hurley - Walker has announced she hit the jackpot , not only finding an object with interchangeable behavior , but observing it while it is still let loose . Other instruments have checked it out , add together information like its polarization . Unfortunately for those who like neat answers , the new discovery , GCRT J1745–3009 , find out even the doubtful explanation for ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 . This objective could n’t be much more mysterious if it sample .
" This remarkable object challenges our sympathy of neutron stars and magnetars , which are some of the most alien and uttermost objective in the Universe , " Hurley - Walker aver in astatement . Indeed there ’s a gamey chance it ’s not aneutron starat all , but if so we do n’t know what it is .
GCRT J1745–3009 has a slightly long cycle than ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 , 21 minutes , during which it emit for 30 - 300 seconds before going silent . However , it ’s not the timing that bother Hurley - Walker the most . ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 was only detected 71 times , open up up the hypothesis it was drawing on some irregular source of energy . However , examining honest-to-goodness records from other instrumental role feel detections of GCRT J1745–3009 in 1988 , 2001 - 2 and 2007 . Throughout that time its cycle has been unchanged .
This consistence also slop another explanation offered for ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 . Last yr Hurley - Walkertold IFLScienceshe could n’t rule out the possibility two objective were on mutual elliptical orbits , producing bursts of Energy Department every 18 transactions as they draw near each other , although she had failed to make a exemplar that worked .
Now she tell decades of observations have in mind , “ We can time GCRT J1745–3009 incredibly precisely . It flip on and off so systematically . There ’s no physic you’re able to excruciate to create a model [ of fellow objects ] that create that . ” Moreover , in the 18 months since issue her newspaper on ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 no one else has retrace a acceptable good example for it either , making her more sure-footed the original also ca n’t be explained that way .
As with ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 , there ’s no point invokingaliensfor GPM J1839–10 . The signal is simply too broad - spectrum and powerful to be a product of a technical civilization . “ tell ‘ it ’s unknown ’ does n’t puzzle out the problem , ” Hurley - Walker recount IFLScience . “ It makes it much , much bad . ”
effort to describe GPM J1839–10 ’s seed in visible luminance have fail ; Hurley - Walker told IFLScience the landing field is simply too crowded with stars to work out which one is creditworthy , if we can see it at all . “ We demand the James Webb , which is quite voiceless to get time on , ” she noted at apress conference .
The paper tentatively offers the possibilityGPM J1839–10 might be a extremely magnetizedwhite nanus , but while that solves a few problem it rear plenty more . No magnetized white dwarf stars have been seen producing anything like this , and the closest comparison is a thousand times fainter .
Hurley - Walker told IFLScience the most probable way to solve the mystery is to regain similar objects , rather in less crowded part of the sky . To do that she wants to research old data point from a miscellany of radio set telescopes , but despite having pen the algorithms to do it , will still need more time than she can in person afford to screen the results . “ All I want is one postdoc , ” she told IFLScience , but alas so far no one has concur to pay the salary .
One thing that is not mysterious is how no one noticed GPM J1839–10 before , despite multiple observation . “ In skill we are usually perform a specific hunting , ” Hurley - Walker tell IFLScience . “ We have a design on how to observe and how we are going to process the datum , not at random and speculatively swear out it in the Leslie Townes Hope something will pop out out . ” Since no one expected something like GPM J1839–10 until ( GLEAM - X ) J162759.5 - 523504.3 was found searches were tailored to look for much shorter signal .
Hurley - Walker has now comprehensively searched the astronomic aeroplane for anything with a duration between four and 250 seconds , with downtimes of minutes or hours . She acknowledges however , that this would not find something like GCRT J1745–3009,also known as the " galactic sum burper " , which released five radio bursts each 11 minute long in 2002 and , after two weak follow - ups , was never get a line from again . There are stranger thing in the galaxy than we know .
The study is published inNature .
