Mysterious Object Beaming Strange Signals to Earth
Astronomers have discovered a cosmic anomaly that’s throwing out pulses of radio waves and X-rays every 44 minutes, and they’re stumped. Dubbed ASKAP J1832-0911, the object was detected by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and it’s unlike anything seen before.
“This object is unlike anything we have seen before,” said Andy Wang, an astronomer at Curtin University and lead author of a new study published in Nature. “ASKAP J1832-0911 could be a magnetar or a pair of stars in a binary system with a highly magnetised white dwarf. However, even those theories don’t fully explain what we are observing.”
The discovery places ASKAP J1832-0911 in a rare class of astrophysical phenomena known as long-period transients (LPTs)—cosmic lighthouses that emit radio waves at intervals of minutes or even hours. Unlike traditional pulsars, which release bursts of radio signals every few seconds or milliseconds, LPTs have been a cosmic mystery since their first detection in 2022. Only ten have been catalogued so far.
What sets ASKAP J1832-0911 apart is its dual emission of radio and X-ray signals. The Chandra observatory’s confirmation of X-rays from an LPT marks a first in astronomical observations, offering a potential breakthrough in understanding these enigmatic objects. “Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,” Wang said.
Nanda Rea, a co-author from the Catalan Institute for Space Studies in Spain, suggested that this find hints at a broader population of similar objects. “Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,” Rea said. “The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.”
As researchers prepare for more observations with radio and X-ray telescope pairs, the hope is to unlock new models of stellar evolution or even unearth physics that we’ve yet to understand.
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