Aliens contacting humans? Researchers observed bright radio signals thrice in an hour, and then this happened

Radio signals from alien objects: Something unusual has been observed in the Universe by a team that was mapping radio waves. Now, I know that space is full of mysterious objects and unusual phenomena are really common there, but this is unlike anything astronomers have seen till now. According to a statement by the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), the unusual object released a giant burst of energy thrice in an hour. As per the astronomers who discovered the unusual phenomenon are of the opinion that the object could be a neutron star or collapsed cores of stars (white dwarf) having a magnetic field that is ultra powerful.

The mysterious object and its discovery

The study was published in the journal Nature earlier this week. The radiation that is sent out by the mysterious object spinning around in space does cross the line of sight of people on Earth, and it is among the brightest sources of radio waves in the sky for one minute every 20 minutes. The team that discovered the strange object was led by ICRAR-Curtin University Astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker.

Dr Natasha said that during their observations, the object was seen to be appearing and disappearing over the course of a few hours. According to her, this was completely unexpected and “spooky” for the team because there is no current knowledge of any object that does that. Moreover, this object is very close to the Earth, located at a distance of around 4,000 lightyears.

The object itself was discovered by Tyrone O’Doherty, a then Honours student at Curtin University and currently studying for PhD at the university, and he discovered it with the help of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope as well as a new technique he had developed.

Transient objects: What are they?

While astronomers have a term – ‘transients’ – for objects that turn on and off in space – like supernovae (which appear over the course of a few days and then disappear after a few months) and neutron star like pulsar (that flash on and off within seconds or milliseconds), what’s peculiar about this object is that it was something that flashed on for a minute.

The study of transients typically includes looking at the death of a massive star or at the activities of its remnants, according to co-author Dr Gemma Anderson. She explained that the object that was discovered was smaller than the Sun and was incredibly bright. It also released very highly polarised radio waves, indicating that it had a very strong magnetic field.

What could the mysterious object be?

According to Dr Natasha, the observations around the mysterious object pointed towards the predicted astrophysical object termed as an ‘ultra-long period magnetar’, which is a slow-spinning neutron star. However, this star has been predicted to exist only in theory so far, which is why astronomers did not expect to actually detect such an object because it had not been believed to be so bright.

This object is converting its magnetic energy into radio waves, but it is doing it in a much more effective manner than astronomers have ever seen before. The object is now being observed by her to see if it would switch back on, and she is also planning to go through MWA archives to see if any more such objects can be detected. This, she believes, would help astrophysicists determine if there is a whole new population that had been missed by them earlier or if this was a rare one-off event.