Newly Identified Cosmic Object Sends Out Blast of Radio Waves and X-Rays Every 44 Minutes
May 30th, 2025Via: Study Finds:
Something deep in the Milky Way is pulsing like clockwork, and no one knows what it is. Every 44 minutes, a mysterious space object nearly 15,000 light-years away sends out a blast of radio waves and high-energy X-rays, defying everything astronomers thought they knew about how stars behave. It’s not a pulsar, not a black hole, and not quite like anything we’ve ever seen before. Now, scientists say this bizarre cosmic beacon might be rewriting the rulebook on extreme stellar physics.
For the first time, astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) have found what’s known as a long-period radio transient that also emits X-rays — something that had never been observed before and wasn’t predicted by existing models. This discovery of ASKAP J1832?0911, published in Nature, introduces a new class of celestial object and calls into question long-standing assumptions in astrophysics.
More: Astronomers find startling pulsing object in Milky Way: ‘Unlike anything we have seen’
Maybe not a beacon but a timer counting down.
Or just counting: Galaxy Radiational Time. A step up, or out, from International Atomic Time. Who would want to be reminded every time a 44 minute period has gone by?
Or it could be like a slow-beating heart, circulating through the galaxy and beyond whatever it is ejecting.