SPOOKY SIGNAL
An Australian student has discovered a spinning object in the Milky Way that a research colleague has described as “spooky”. Tyrone O’Doherty, a student at Curtin University, was going through data collected by the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope, using a new technique he had developed, when he came across an object releasing a blast of radio frequency energy for a full minute every 18 minutes. The team leader, astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, said: “That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there’s nothing known in the sky that does that.” Objects that turn on and off are well known to astronomers, but none turns on for as long as a minute: something that behaves like this is “really weird” according to Curtin University astrophysicist Dr Gemma Anderson. By going back through years of data the research team were able to work out that the object is 4,000 light years away, is extremely bright and has a very strong magnetic field. As yet, there is no clear indication as to what exactly the object might be,although a neutron star or a white dwarf are candidates, with Dani Maoz from Tel-Aviv University proposing a “hot sub-dwarf” as the culprit. This is the remnant of a collapsed Sunlike star on its way to becoming a white dwarf. This one would be rotating at close to its maximum possible speed, which would account for its likely magnetic properties and its extreme energy emissions.
