A star in deep space from a neutron star “graveyard” is emitting a strange pulse that is intriguing scientists who didn’t expect to detect any radio emissions at all from that area.
Roughly 1,300 light-years from Earth, in the Vela-X 1 region of the Milky Way, PSR J0941-4046 emitted a pulse that lasted about 300 milliseconds and repeated every 76 seconds. But most neutron star pulses cycle through every few seconds or less.
“This wasn’t like anything we’d seen before,” University of Sydney lecturer Manisha Caleb stated in the report, the New York Post noted. “We might have found a completely new class of radio-emitting object,” she added.
“Our observation showed PSR J0941-4046 had some of the characteristics of a ‘pulsar’ or even a ‘magnetar,’” Caleb wrote at The Conversation. “Pulsars are the extremely dense remnants of collapsed giant stars which usually emit radio waves from their poles. As they rotate, the radio pulses can be measured from Earth, a bit like how you’d see a lighthouse periodically flash in the distance.”
The abstract for the study from the scientists, published in Nature Astronomy, states:
The radio-emitting neutron star population encompasses objects with spin periods ranging from milliseconds to tens of seconds. As they age and spin more slowly, their radio emission is expected to cease. … Our discovery establishes the existence of ultra-long-period neutron stars, suggesting a possible connection to the evolution of highly magnetized neutron stars, ultra-long-period magnetars and fast radio bursts.
“It’s also fascinating as it appears to produce at least seven distinctly different pulse shapes, whereas most neutron stars don’t exhibit such variety,” Caleb wrote regarding PSR J0941-4046. “This diversity in pulse shape, and also pulse intensity, is likely related to the unknown physical emission mechanism of the object.”
“It’s pretty lucky we were able to spot it in the first place,” she admitted, “Detecting similar sources is challenging, which implies there may be a larger undetected population waiting to be discovered. Our finding also adds to the possibility of a new class of radio transient: the ultra-long period neutron star.”
In the summer of 2018, something powerful from the deep recesses of space sent a series of radio blasts to Earth on July 25, something so powerful that the signals were the lowest frequency ever recorded from Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). The reason these signals were so mysterious was that scientists didn’t know what could have sent such powerful blasts, which last only milliseconds.
The radio bursts were received by the state-of-the-art Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) telescope in the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory near Penticton, British Columbia, Canada.
Scientists have surmised that exploding black holes could have sent such bursts, although they also posit it is possible they came from advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations.