Scientists find new ‘spooky’ spinning object in Milky Way

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Australian scientists have discovered an unknown “spooky” spinning object in the Milky Way that they claim is unlike anything seen before.</p>
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The object – first discovered by a university student – has been observed to release a huge burst of radio energy for a full minute every 18 minutes.</p>
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Objects that pulse energy in the universe are often documented. But researchers say something that turns on for a minute is highly unusual.</p>
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The team is working to understand more.</p>
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The object was first discovered by Curtin University Honours student Tyrone O'Doherty in a region of the Western Australian outback known as the Murchison Widefield Array, using a telescope and a new technique he had developed.</p>
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O'Doherty was part of a team led by astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).</p>
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"It was appearing and disappearing over a few hours during our observations," she was quoted as saying in a media release from ICRAR..</p>
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"That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there's nothing known in the sky that does that."</p>
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Objects that turn on and off in the Universe are not new to astronomers—they call them "transients".</p>
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But an object that turned on for a full minute was "really weird," ICRAR-Curtin astrophysicist Dr Gemma Anderson, was quoted as saying in the release.</p>
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After trawling back through years of data, the team was able to establish that the object is about 4,000 light-years from Earth, is incredibly bright and has an extremely strong magnetic field, the ICRAR statement said.</p>
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But there are still many mysteries to untangle.</p>
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"If you do all of the mathematics, you find that they shouldn't have enough power to produce these kind of radio waves every 20 minutes," Hurley-Walker said.</p>
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"More detections will tell astronomers whether this was a rare one-off event or a vast new population we'd never noticed before," Dr Hurley-Walker said. "I'm looking forward to understanding this object and then extending the search to find more."</p>