Scientists still don’t know where the strange radio blasts that Earth has been receiving for decades are originating from.To make matters even scarier, scientists have recently discovered that the signals have been reaching our planet since 1988, but no one knows what object could be responsible for them. For the past 35 years, energy bursts of variable brightness that occasionally continue for five-minute intervals have been detected every 22 minutes. Before this object appeared to disprove the theory, scientists thought it was impossible to send such a signal with such frequency and kind of brightness for so long.
The signal might be 15,000 light-years away
The signal-emitting object is known as GPMJ1839-10, according to a recent publication titled “A long-period radio transient active for three decades,” which was published in the journal Nature last week. They also discovered that this signal had been reaching Earth since 1988 and might be 15,000 light-years away after looking back over ancient records. According to one theory, the flashes could be caused by pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that also emit radio waves. Typically, one of these emissions can be detected extremely briefly and intensely when it reaches Earth, similar to the flash from a rotating lighthouse. If the object is rotating quickly enough and has a strong magnetic field, our planet can only detect these signals.
However, a few months or years after they begin to produce the signals, pulsars typically lose their signal when they die (this is known as the death line). Their magnetic field becomes too feeble at that point to produce any more high-energy radiation. The exception appears to be this signal, which has been detected on Earth for more than 30 years. If it’s not a pulsar, it might be a magnetar, a neutron star that spins much more slowly than a pulsar but has a bigger magnetic field. Natasha Hurley-Walker, the principal author of research on the object and a radio astronomer at Australia’s International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, however, stated in a statement: “The object we’ve discovered is spinning way too slowly to produce radio waves – it’s below the death line.”
This object was first discovered in September 2022
“Assuming it’s a magnetar, it shouldn’t be possible for this object to produce radio waves. But we’re seeing them.” This object was first discovered in September 2022, using the Murchison Widefield Array, a radio telescope array in the Australian outback. Hurley-Walker also explained previous scientists had “missed” the radio waves “because they hadn’t expected to find anything like it.” All hypotheses that may account for the object’s sluggish rotation, extended pulse duration, and long emission period are insufficient. She added: “This remarkable object challenges our understanding of neutron stars and magnetars, which are some of the most exotic and extreme objects in the universe. “Whatever mechanism is behind this is extraordinary.”
