A dead world located 8,100 light years away from us suddenly emitted a never-before-seen radio signal after more than 10 years of disappearance.
Astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes (Murriyang) Radio Telescope (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization – Australia) have detected unusual radio signals from an object ” zombie” named XTE J1810-197.
Theo Sci-NewsXTE J1810-197 is a radio magnetar – also known as a supermagnetic neutron star – located 8,100 light years from Earth, in the constellation Sagittarius.
Neutron stars, which are the “zombies” of giant stars, have collapsed, collapsing into a small but extremely energetic object.
Magnetars are extremely powerful neutron stars and are the strongest magnetic source in the universe. Therefore, it can be said that the radio star is the “king of monsters” in the celestial world.
That’s why radio signals from it can travel as far as observatories on Earth.
The anomalous radio signal was determined to be from XTE J1810-197, a cosmic “zombie” – Graphic image: SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
The radio signal from XTE J1810-197 was extremely strange, seen by radio telescopes as continuously changing circularly polarized light, indicating that the star appeared to be wobbling violently.
“We have never seen anything similar” – Dr. Marcus Lower from CSIRO admitted.
Strange radio signals from space were once suspected to be related to alien civilizations.
However, modern observational means increasingly point to many sources of natural radio signals, including neutron stars and neutron star mergers, black hole mergers…
Therefore, despite the strange changes and lack of regularity, it is clear that the signal source from XTE J1810-197 is not related to foreign civilizations.
It’s very strange, though, because XTE J1810-197 is one of the rare magnetars that can produce radio pulses, not to mention such an unusual type of radio pulse.
This anomaly can be explained by a high-temperature plasma structure above the magnetar’s magnetic pole, which acts as a polarization filter. However, that is still just speculation.
But the findings help explain many things surrounding XTE J1810-197, an object that has puzzled astronomers for years.
In 2003, XTE J1810-197 emitted a suspicious radio signal, then suddenly disappeared from all observation devices for more than 10 years.
New discoveries about this radio star have just been published in a scientific journal Nature Astronomy.