Australian scientists say they’ve discovered an unknown spinning object in the Milky Way, which they claim is unlike anything they’ve seen before.

The object – originally discovered by a college student – has been observed to release huge bursts of radio energy every 18 minutes for a full minute.

Objects that generate pulses of energy in the universe are often recorded. But researchers say something that opens for a minute is very unusual.

The team is working to learn more.

The object was first discovered by Curtin University honours student Tyrone O’Doherty using a telescope and new technology he developed in outback Western Australia known as the Murchison Widefield Array.

Mr O’Doherty was part of a team led by astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).

“During our observations, [it] appeared and disappeared for hours,” she said in an ICRAR media release documenting the discovery.

“It was totally unexpected. For astronomers, it’s kind of creepy because there’s nothing known to do this in the sky.”
Objects in the universe that turn on and off aren’t new to astronomers — they call them “transients.”

But ICRAR-Curtin astrophysicist Gemma Anderson, Ph.D., was quoted in the press release as saying a celestial body that turned on for a full minute was “really weird.”

ICRAR added that after going back years of data, the team was able to determine that the object was about 4,000 light-years from Earth, was very bright and had an extremely strong magnetic field.

Theories about what the object might have been like include a neutron star or a white dwarf — a term used for the remnants of a collapsed star. However, most of the findings remain a mystery.

“More detections will tell astronomers whether this is a rare one-off event or a large new population that we haven’t noticed before,” said Dr Hurley-Walker. “I’m looking forward to learning about this object and then expanding the search to find more.”

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