The spinning space object, spotted in March 2018, beamed out radiation three times per hour. In those moments, it became the brightest source of radio waves viewable from Earth, acting like a celestial lighthouse.
"That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there's nothing known in the sky that does that. And it's really quite close to us -- about 4,000 light-years away. It's in our galactic backyard." "It's exciting that the source I identified last year has turned out to be such a peculiar object," O'Doherty said in a statement."The MWA's wide field of view and extreme sensitivity are perfect for surveying the entire sky and detecting the unexpected."Flaring space objects that appear to turn on and off are known as transients.
This new, incredibly bright object, however, only turned on for about a minute every 18 minutes. The researchers said their observations might match up with the definition of an ultra-long period magnetar. Magnetars usually flare by the second, but this object takes longer.
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