Scientists find a rare pulsating object in space

Early this month, scientists found a mysterious object in space. These scientists used the ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder) and NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory to find the object. It is a unknown cosmic object that has seems to be one of its kind, called ASKAP J1832.’

Scientists are considering whether ASKAP J1832 could be a neutron star, but ASKAP J1832 spins so slow that it barely reaches the expectation for confirmed neutron stars. Neutron star spin speeds are typically at 0.033 or 0.089 milliseconds. ASKAP J1832 needs 44 minutes! Plus, since ASKAP J1832 was only recently discovered, scientists don’t know how it was made. This limits the research they can do.

Compared to the two popular neutron stars, ‘Crab’ and ‘Vela,’ ASKAP is quite different. The Vela and Crab pulsars were made in supernovas and are very fast: one rotation takes 0.033 milliseconds for Crab, and 0.089 milliseconds for Vela. On the other hand, ASKAP J1832 is quite slow. The mystery object pulsates radio waves and x-rays, but wobbles between ‘high,’ ‘none detected,’ and ‘low.’ Hence, ASKAP J1832 is a huge mystery. It is slow, its identity is unknown, its history is unknown, and it is pulsating. Almost nothing is known about this mysterious unknown object called ASKAP J1832.

Scientists will need to continue their research of the unknown object we know as ASKAP J1832.

References

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/crk2vd8en3lo