(ORDO NEWS) — An unusual radio signal from space has baffled scientists from the University of Sydney.
According to the New York Post, a team of researchers discovered something surprising when they used a radio telescope in South Africa to observe a region of the Milky Way called Vela-X 1, which is 1,300 light-years from Earth.
“We detected a strange-looking flash or “pulse” that lasted 300 milliseconds. We have never seen anything like it,” said one of the scientists Manisha Kaleb.
The researchers checked the old radio telescope data: it turned out that the signal appeared before, but remained unnoticed.
Although the unknown flare shares several properties with neutron star radiation, there is one important difference. The strange pulse recurred every 76 seconds much less frequently than during the neutron star cycle.
Of particular interest to the object is the fact that it is located in the “cemetery” of neutron stars – a region of space where stars should not be active.
Scientists believe that a completely new class of radio-emitting objects can be the source of the signal – most likely, this is a special type of star. The researchers dubbed this star PSR J0491-4046.
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