Object firing signals at Earth every 44 minutes

Summary

Astronomers have discovered a mysterious object flashing strange signals from deep space, and they have no idea what it is.The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, spits out pulses of radio waves and X-rays for two minutes straight, once every 44 minutes.Detected by Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory, the strange repeating signals are currently unexplained — and unravelling this cosmic mystery could reveal new physics, according to the researchers who discovered it. The team published their findings May 28 in the journal Nature."This object is unlike anything we have seen before," lead study author Andy Wang, an astronomer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, said in a statement. "ASKAP J1831-0911 could be a magnetar (the core of a dead star with powerful magnetic fields), or it could be a pair of stars in a binary system where one of the two is a highly magnetised white dwarf (a low-mass star at the end of its evolution).""However, even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing," Wang added. "This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution."ASKAP J1832-0911 is a long-period transient (LPT), a class of rare and extreme astrophysical events that sweep out beams of radio waves like cosmic lighthouses. First discovered in 2022, thus far ten LPTs have been catalogued by astronomers.Related: 'Cosmic cannonballs' exploding out of dead star could explain mysterious flicker in the night skyGet the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.Unlike traditional pulsars, which are produced by neutron stars and spit out radio signals every few seconds or milliseconds, LPTs emit pulses at intervals of minutes or hours apart — a period previously thought to be impossible. This has made the cause of the signals, and how they are able to switch on and off at long and regular intervals, a mystery among astronomers.After discovering the signals using...