Object emits a massive burst of energy lasting 60 seconds every 18 minutes
A previously unknown object emitting periodic pulses of energy was discovered by Tyrone O'Doherty, a PhD student at Curtin University in Western Australia, in 2020. Initially, they did not pay much attention to it, but on closer examination it was found that the object makes a powerful burst of energy lasting 60 seconds every 18 minutes.
During the observation process, a pulsating object with a strong magnetic field periodically disappeared from the field of view, but after a while returned, becoming the brightest radio source in the earth's sky. «It was very unexpected and creepy, because astronomers have never seen anything like it in the sky» ,» commented Natasha Hurley-Walker, an astrophysicist at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research.
Scientists often enough observe transient sources that change brightness and disappear from view, but the uniqueness of this object is that it is in an active state of energy release for a whole minute. Scientists note that they had never observed such objects before. “We did not think that this was possible, but it is a fact, and it indicates that some extreme processes are taking place in space,” Harley believes. Walker.
According to available data, an unknown object emits radio pulses intermittently. Scientists have found that the radiation from the object is 90% polarized, which indicates that it has a strong and ordered magnetic field. The repetitions indicate that the object is rotating. This characterizes pulsars and magnetars. However, the detected object rotates for too long, since the rotation period of a pulsar is usually about 2 seconds, and a magnetar is more than 10 seconds. It is assumed that scientists have discovered a magnetar with an ultra-long rotation period. So far, this is only a hypothesis, since such objects have not been observed before.