Scientists Are Stumped by Mysterious Pulsing ‘Star’ | Titled “ASKAP J1832”, the unexplained body is semaphoring into space, blinking in both X-ray and radio once every 44 minutes
https://time.com/7290073/scientists-stumped-by-mysterious-pulsing-star/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-intl
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Important excerpts:
ASKAP J1832 is by no means unique in the universe in sending out energy in steady flashes. Pulsars—rapidly spinning neutron stars—do too. **But pulsars flash much faster than ASKAP J1832 does, on the order of milliseconds to seconds. In 2022, astronomers discovered a type of object known as a long-period transient, which, like ASKAP J1832, sends out flashes of radio waves on the order of tens of minutes. So far 10 such bodies have been found, but none identical to ASKAP J1832, which is the first to emit X-rays too.**
What’s more, **ASKAP J1832’s emissions have changed over time. During one observation with NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory in February 2024, the object was prodigiously producing both X-rays and radio waves. During a follow-up observation six months later, the radio waves were 1,000 times fainter and no X-rays were detected.** That was a puzzle.
**“We looked at several different possibilities involving neutron stars and white dwarfs, either in isolation or with companion stars,” said co-author Nanda Rea of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, in a statement. “So far nothing exactly matches up, but some ideas work better than others.”**
> **ASKAP J1832-0911** is a stellar object referred to as a “long period radio transient”. ASKAP J1832 was first identified through observations taken at the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, with follow up observations conducted through the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A body referred to as a long-period transient (LPT), ASKAP J1832 is a body which emits radio pulses and x-ray radiation 2 minutes in duration every 44 minutes. There exists uncertainty of the object’s stellar identity, with some believing it may be a magnetar or a white dwarf.
* Excerpted from [ASKAP J1832−0911](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASKAP_J1832%E2%88%920911) at the English Wikipedia
Shit title. “…semaphoring” implies that it is intentionally sending messages. That’s like saying the sun sends a message every morning when it rises.