Astronomers have discovered a strange new celestial object in the Milky Way galaxy the galaxy that includes planet Earth which is baffling the scientific community due to its regular signal emissions, reports Rks News.
An international team has reported that the mysterious object, named ASKAP J1832−091, emits both X-rays and radio waves every 44 minutes during periods of intense activity. This unusual emission rhythm makes it stand out from anything previously observed.
The object is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth, in a star-rich region filled with gas and dust in the Milky Way. According to Ziteng Andy Wang from Curtin University in Australia, it could be a highly magnetized neutron star or a white dwarf both of which are forms of dead stars. However, Wang does not rule out the possibility that this may be a completely new and “exotic” phenomenon.
The X-ray discovery was made by accident last year by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was studying the remnants of a supernova an exploded star. It remains unclear whether the object is connected to the supernova or simply located nearby in space.
The object’s active phase lasts about one month, and outside this period, it does not emit detectable X-rays.
“Either we are dealing with a previously unknown object, or we are seeing a new version of an object we already know — but behaving in an entirely unusual way,” said Wang, the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.
Launched into orbit in 1999, Chandra remains one of NASA’s primary instruments for studying the hottest and most energetic objects in the universe, and this latest discovery reaffirms its importance in the exploration of deep space.
