Astronomers Discover Mystery Cosmic Body Bursting With X-Rays (space.com) 27
Astronomers have discovered a mysterious cosmic object, ASKAP J1832-0911, that emits both radio waves and X-rays in precise 44-minute cycles, making it unlike anything observed before. Space.com reports: This is the first time an object like this, a so-called "long-period transient" or "LPT," has been seen in high-energy X-ray light as well as low-energy radio wave light. The team behind this discovery hopes the finding could help reveal what these flashing objects actually are and how they launch their mystery signals. However, not only is there no explanation for how the signals from LPTs are generated yet, but astronomers also don't know why these signals "switch on" and "switch off" at long, regular and unusual intervals. "This object is unlike anything we have seen before," team leader and Curtin University researcher Zieng (Andy) Wang said in a statement. [...]
The team believes the true nature of ASKAP J1832-0911 is a dead star, they just don't quite know what form that star takes. A highly magnetic neutron star, or "magnetar," is one option, and a a white dwarf -- the kind of stellar remnant the sun will leave behind when it dies in over 5 billion years -- is another. "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 magnetized white dwarf, a low-mass star at the end of its evolution," Wang said. "However, even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. "This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution." The research has been published in the journal Nature.
The team believes the true nature of ASKAP J1832-0911 is a dead star, they just don't quite know what form that star takes. A highly magnetic neutron star, or "magnetar," is one option, and a a white dwarf -- the kind of stellar remnant the sun will leave behind when it dies in over 5 billion years -- is another. "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 magnetized white dwarf, a low-mass star at the end of its evolution," Wang said. "However, even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. "This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution." The research has been published in the journal Nature.
Nope. (Score:3)
Re: Nope. (Score:2)
Paper (Score:5, Informative)
Link to actual paper
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Its *probably* a magnetar (basically, a neutron star with a collossal magnetic field).
Because of the stresses on a magnetar, they tend to shit out a lot of radiation, so they glow like beasts in a radio telescope. The mystery here is that a magnetar is expected to have a periodicity of 2-10hz. (2-10 rotations a second). But this thing is displaying a periodicity of 46 minutes (2 minutes on, 44 minutes off). The fact the periodicity is stable means that this is definately rotation induced, but its *weird* rotation.
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So, its its weird rotation that its causing it if I understand correctly? Its correct, itsn't it? /s
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Its' wrong.
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Well SOMETHING is rotating (It has to be, its strictly periodic). And its got all the thumbprint of a magnetar, except for the fact that its frequency is *way* off.
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Thank you! Its its frequency its way off then. /s
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LOL! What is confusing you? "of mine" between "friend's father" ?
A friend's of mine father worked 45 years manually screwing caps on bleach bottles all day long.
Daddy's daughter, daddy's best daughter, etc.
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If you have a friend, and that friend has a father, and that father worked 45 years, then the correct orthography would be: “A friend of mine’s father worked 45 years.”
Grammatically, “a friend of mine’s father” is technically unorthodox, but it’s widely accepted in everyday use. The possessive ’s attaches to the entire phrase “friend of mine”, even though it doesn’t follow strict grammar rules.
Whereas the phrase you wrote: “A friend
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Regarding your examples, they are correct but do not highlight the problem in your original phrase. Note that “of mine” already includes the first of the two levels of possession. These additional cases may help you understand:
Tom’s friend.
Tom’s friend’s father.
A friend of Tom.
A friend of Tom’s father.
My friend.
My friend’s father.
A friend of mine.
A friend of mine’s father — idiomatic but best rewritten “My friend’s father”.
A fri
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LOL! What is confusing you? "of mine" between "friend's father" ?
A friend's of mine father worked 45 years manually screwing caps on bleach bottles all day long.
Daddy's daughter, daddy's best daughter, etc. etc.
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It could be orbiting another star/thing in a close orbit, and is hidden behind it most of the time ... ... just like that solar system discovered a while ago. It has two suns, and a big planet orbiting perpendicular to the two suns. That is pretty weird, too.
Would be a weird coincident that it points its radiation at us only ever 44mins
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It could be orbiting another star/thing in a close orbit, and is hidden behind it most of the time ... ... just like that solar system discovered a while ago. It has two suns, and a big planet orbiting perpendicular to the two suns. That is pretty weird, too.
Would be a weird coincident that it points its radiation at us only ever 44mins
I wish that the paper wasn't paywalled, I'm curious how the period of the observation works. Telling me it's every ~44min doesn't tell me for what duration we see signal versus for what duration we don't see signal, or how that signal changes over the observation window.
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Telling me it's every ~44min doesn't tell me for what duration we see signal versus for what duration we don't see signal, or how that signal changes over the observation window.
The thread you are in started with a comment that noted exactly that:
But this thing is displaying a periodicity of 46 minutes (2 minutes on, 44 minutes off).
Though it would make no difference to me, it bothers me that those aren't more precise. I'd be shocked if it was actually 120 seconds on, 2640 seconds off.
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Rock solid timing, at 3 sigma significance, according to the paper, thats pretty tight.
There is a slightly more accurate reading than 44/2 in the paper but I'm not sure how to reproduce the num
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Ah cheers. I was half asleep so wasn't keen to reverse engineer the number (Unless a more plainly stated version was elsewhere in the paper and I missed it, again, pre morning coffee brain lol)
Paywall not Re:Paper (Score:4, Interesting)
FTFY
Fortunately those long catalogue numbers for star ID are good search terms. The paper was put on Archiv in November last year [arxiv.org].
Same abstract. It's the same paper, bar maybe some tyops and rephrasing.
Strongly polarised signal in the radio - which is a sign of strong magnetic fields in the source region.
Does SIMBAD [unistra.fr] have anything else about this object? Not directly, but it does link [unistra.fr] to another long-period radio source reported earlier this year (i.e. after this paper was submitted to Archiv, and presumably to Nature too ; Astrophys. J., 981, 34 (2025/March-1).). This newer discovery has a 125.5 minutes period in radio emission. But no significant X-rays reported.
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Here’s a link to free version (early preprint without Nature formatting?) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.166... [arxiv.org]
That mentions a period 2634s with uncertainty +71s and -64s at three sigma significance. This means the period measurement has uncertainty of that magnitude, but it doesn’t tell us what the measured known standard deviation is (how irregular we know the period is) does it?
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They also mention a period of 2656.247 plus or minus 0.001 seconds, ...
Thank you! And to answer my question from elsewhere - No. It is not exactly 44 nor 46 minutes, which would be extremely creepy/weird (2656.247s = 44 min 16.247 seconds).
Aliens! (Score:1)
Get it over with, it's fucking aliens.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_characteristic