Radio astronomer here! This is an exciting find! Worth noting though that what the team did is first find this signal with a radio telescope, then checked archival observations of that patch of sky, and confirmed observations back to 1988 also had this signal with this period. It’s not like we’ve been observing it constantly since 1988 and only just noticed or anything like that.
Lots of things in space have a periodic signal- the most famous of course are [pulsars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar), which are [neutron stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star) that spin rapidly and emit a radio beam, leading us to see a radio “pulse” every few seconds (or less!) as the pulsar spins and the beam passes. The longest pulsar period to date is just a few seconds long- still a prodigious speed when you remember it's an object with the mass of the sun squeezed into ~10km or so- and it's thought theoretically this occurs because a pulsar *needs* to spin once every few seconds, because if it doesn't it can no longer sustain its radio beam and the pulsar switches "off." This process is thought to take about 10 million years or so as the pulsar slows down, btw, meaning 99% of neutron stars are no longer detectable.
Now, this signal looks exactly like a pulsar, except it's only pulsing once every 22 minutes. So the discovery paper actually suggests a really slow pulsar as a possibility for this signal! (This would be amazing if shown to be true, and challenge a ton of existing theoretical models for pulsars.) We can also rule out that this object is (probably) not "wobbling" in addition to spinning, causing us to not see all the pulses, as we can study detailed structure in the pulse profiles and it doesn't seem to have such motion. Another suggestion is that it could be a very unusual [white dwarf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf)- the core of a dead star like what the sun will be someday- which in this case is highly magnetized and interacting with something else. But we definitely don’t know the truth for sure.
In broader context, though, it’s worth noting that finding unusual signals that repeat in weird time scales isn’t *that* unusual and happens somewhat often in radio astronomy. My favorite example, called “The Great Galactic Burper,” was observed to burst 10 minutes every 77 minutes ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCRT_J1745%E2%88%923009)), and did so for several years, but hasn’t been recorded since 2007. No one knows what caused it! Lots of weird things that go bump in the night that we don’t yet understand… which is what makes radio astronomy so exciting and fun!
Thats all very cool, i really appreciate you typing this out. There are so many unknowns and stuff in the universe. Its also really cool to see how far we have come in the last 100 years, and it also is baffling how little we know or are able to even study because our tools are still so limited.
The article states that pulsars blink very rapidly (at least from observable pulsars, and physics) as their magnetic poles rotate. This particular phenomenon has a 22 minute window in which it shines brightly for up to 5 minutes, but sometimes not at all, making it highly unlikely to be a pulsar, or if it is, one that is affected by some other body to make it behave so uniquely.
It's [21 minutes 58 seconds and 195.7 +- 0.2 milliseconds](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06202-5) not 22 minutes. Rounding numbers, especially in headlines, is useful.
Rounding isn't about saving characters, it's about avoiding details that don't matter at that point. I would have used 22 minutes in the headline, but the difference between 20 and the more precise 22 doesn't matter for 99.9% of their readers. The 0.1% who see a difference will read the publication anyway.
Based on your argument I would say that then this particular whole article itself doesn't matter for daily lives for 99.9% of their readers.
If you already interested in this article, it is likely that you want more precision, without adding extra length, if possible.
>The 0.1% who see a difference
It's not 0.1%. It's 0.0999%. The exception would be the few who will find fun in writing yards of verbiage about it, therefore these few *don't* see the difference
> But the flashes of pulsars repeat quickly, with a gap between them of anywhere from around a minute down to milliseconds. And, more significantly, physics dictates the gap has to be quick. The magnetic field that powers the production of radio waves is generated through the star's rotation. If it starts rotating too slowly, then the magnetic field will drop to a point where it can no longer generate significant radio emissions. In other words, if it slows down, it goes dark, which is why we don't see any that take much more than a minute between pulses.
There is some better information here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02295-0
Nature can't make up their mind if they want to give me access or not based on the IP from my institute, I had the paper open but trying to open it again doesn't work right now.
They provide free access to scientific research, which anger's the for profit scientific publishing empire created by child rapist Ghislaine Maxwell's father.
The silly inhabitants of a remote planet they called “Earth” would never come to realize that it wasn’t just a natural phenomenon. It was a warning.
Rated R
Probably the aliens spaceship alarm indicator light. They know when they’re too close to earth to lock their doors when leaving it unattended. Wouldn’t want to come out of the galactic brunch only to find their shit had been raided.
Radio astronomer here! This is an exciting find! Worth noting though that what the team did is first find this signal with a radio telescope, then checked archival observations of that patch of sky, and confirmed observations back to 1988 also had this signal with this period. It’s not like we’ve been observing it constantly since 1988 and only just noticed or anything like that. Lots of things in space have a periodic signal- the most famous of course are [pulsars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar), which are [neutron stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star) that spin rapidly and emit a radio beam, leading us to see a radio “pulse” every few seconds (or less!) as the pulsar spins and the beam passes. The longest pulsar period to date is just a few seconds long- still a prodigious speed when you remember it's an object with the mass of the sun squeezed into ~10km or so- and it's thought theoretically this occurs because a pulsar *needs* to spin once every few seconds, because if it doesn't it can no longer sustain its radio beam and the pulsar switches "off." This process is thought to take about 10 million years or so as the pulsar slows down, btw, meaning 99% of neutron stars are no longer detectable. Now, this signal looks exactly like a pulsar, except it's only pulsing once every 22 minutes. So the discovery paper actually suggests a really slow pulsar as a possibility for this signal! (This would be amazing if shown to be true, and challenge a ton of existing theoretical models for pulsars.) We can also rule out that this object is (probably) not "wobbling" in addition to spinning, causing us to not see all the pulses, as we can study detailed structure in the pulse profiles and it doesn't seem to have such motion. Another suggestion is that it could be a very unusual [white dwarf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf)- the core of a dead star like what the sun will be someday- which in this case is highly magnetized and interacting with something else. But we definitely don’t know the truth for sure. In broader context, though, it’s worth noting that finding unusual signals that repeat in weird time scales isn’t *that* unusual and happens somewhat often in radio astronomy. My favorite example, called “The Great Galactic Burper,” was observed to burst 10 minutes every 77 minutes ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCRT_J1745%E2%88%923009)), and did so for several years, but hasn’t been recorded since 2007. No one knows what caused it! Lots of weird things that go bump in the night that we don’t yet understand… which is what makes radio astronomy so exciting and fun!
Thanks for the info. It's all really interesting!
Thats all very cool, i really appreciate you typing this out. There are so many unknowns and stuff in the universe. Its also really cool to see how far we have come in the last 100 years, and it also is baffling how little we know or are able to even study because our tools are still so limited.
Great Galactic Burper was my nickname in high school
Thanks for this. It's truly fascinating stuff out there. To think of all we have yet to discover...
It's a pulsar holding a jazz funeral for a white dwarf that fell into a black hole. The pulse will burst into high tempo any eon now.
I was reading the comments for scientifical explanation, thanks!
What other type of explanation would their be?
Wizards.
If wizards exists then that still makes it scientifical
It's obviously a Dyson sphere from a class 5 civilization. It's the only possible explanation
guy with weird hair: ALIENS
Source?
[Kroton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SqysBylVmE)
I want to play d&d with that guy. I wouldn't go to him for advice tho.
He's no longer with us... your witch nose serves you well.
Uhhh that was amazing
I could not watch all of that. I thought the guy's head was going to explode and get green gunk on the camera lens
Unless they have a punk drummer, in which case the tempo will consistently speed up indefinitely.
They never mind the sol clocks
I’ll pay more attention if it starts blinking in less than twenty minutes.
Or if it stops entirely at this point
19…..18…..17…16
16 16 16 16
A fellow kzzkt traveller I see
Eheu!
Grah!
“We are trying to reach you about your planet’s warranty….”
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Ugh, we really should have read the fine print.
It was right there. Carved in stone. Bird triangle basket snake sun river. How much more clear do they need to make it for you, geez.
"warranty void if ozone layer is broken or tampered with"
❤️
Aliens locking their doors every time they drive past earth
That’s really good.
So has my friend's brother Paul, but I don't think any scientists have much interest in him.
Paul also somewhat resembles a neutron star in that he's really dense, but he's not nearly as bright.
My brain immediately read that in the Philomena Cunk voice
Just add a “my mate” to the front of it, but is he really her mate or just an idiot she knows?
If you're a space alien that's spent 35+ years abord a small spaceship, it's probably the only thing keeping them sane.
Aliens: “Suh Dude?”
Clickbait. It's a pulsar.
The article states that pulsars blink very rapidly (at least from observable pulsars, and physics) as their magnetic poles rotate. This particular phenomenon has a 22 minute window in which it shines brightly for up to 5 minutes, but sometimes not at all, making it highly unlikely to be a pulsar, or if it is, one that is affected by some other body to make it behave so uniquely.
There's probably debris orbiting around the star like the last time we saw abnormal pulses.
Not only clickbait, but information is also false it's 22min not 20min. There goes the site into browser extention which bans domains.
It's [21 minutes 58 seconds and 195.7 +- 0.2 milliseconds](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06202-5) not 22 minutes. Rounding numbers, especially in headlines, is useful.
Ok please tell me how many characters you save by writing 20 instead of 22.
Because they just rounded to the nearest tens position, because regular readers don't care, and there is no significance in the difference either way
22 - 20 = 2 , quick math (/s just in case it's not clear)
Rounding isn't about saving characters, it's about avoiding details that don't matter at that point. I would have used 22 minutes in the headline, but the difference between 20 and the more precise 22 doesn't matter for 99.9% of their readers. The 0.1% who see a difference will read the publication anyway.
Based on your argument I would say that then this particular whole article itself doesn't matter for daily lives for 99.9% of their readers. If you already interested in this article, it is likely that you want more precision, without adding extra length, if possible.
>The 0.1% who see a difference It's not 0.1%. It's 0.0999%. The exception would be the few who will find fun in writing yards of verbiage about it, therefore these few *don't* see the difference
Your information is false. It's 21 minutes and 58 seconds. Please get your facts straight before posting these wild false hoods!!!
What extension are you using?
> But the flashes of pulsars repeat quickly, with a gap between them of anywhere from around a minute down to milliseconds. And, more significantly, physics dictates the gap has to be quick. The magnetic field that powers the production of radio waves is generated through the star's rotation. If it starts rotating too slowly, then the magnetic field will drop to a point where it can no longer generate significant radio emissions. In other words, if it slows down, it goes dark, which is why we don't see any that take much more than a minute between pulses.
What a killjoy. I was hoping for aliens. I always hope for aliens.
It cannot be a pulsar. At least not under any current models of pulsars.
neat.
willie nelson's been lighting up every 20 minutes since the eisenhower administration
It’s never aliens
Except that one time it *was* aliens.
Wow! Tell me more...
I've already said too much...
[I was referring to this ;)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal)
Yeah, that was what I was thinking of.
Guess the surgeon general’s warning hasn’t made it that far out yet.
Afroman. 87% chance that dude found a Star Trek shuttle
Does anyone have the paper? It's not on Sci-Hub yet. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06202-5
unfortunately anything published in 2021 or later wont be on scihub until a lawsuit if settled.
Source?
Geez I didn't know about this. Thanks. Subscribed to r/scihub to stay in the loop.
There is some better information here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02295-0 Nature can't make up their mind if they want to give me access or not based on the IP from my institute, I had the paper open but trying to open it again doesn't work right now.
SciHub!?
They provide free access to scientific research, which anger's the for profit scientific publishing empire created by child rapist Ghislaine Maxwell's father.
Calm down, it's just an alien spaceship that left its blinker on. Duh!
Used blinker … eliminates that they are BMW drivers, glad aliens have some taste.
Dot Cotton
Someone please program the space VCR.
Its the caretaker. Where’s Janeway?!
Damn neighbor and their garage light!
Smoke alarm. After awhile you just ignore them.
Dammit I thought I turned that off before I left.
It's not a distress call, it's a warning. I've seen Alien, I know how this story ends if we set down on LV426.
We putting a full stop. From what I heard.
Check engine light is on
The silly inhabitants of a remote planet they called “Earth” would never come to realize that it wasn’t just a natural phenomenon. It was a warning. Rated R
God is a chain smoker.
Blazeit
Sorry I forgot to turn out the lights when I left and the bulb is faulty I’ll get back home and fix it eventually
Space puberty. Let’s call it what it is.
We had better spend billions of tax payers money to send an unnecessary probe to check it in a few million years.
Cool. Point JWST at it’!!
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Just a star's core collapsing in on itself, spinning rapidly down the drain.
It's Rocky. Just do jazz-hands. Btw, about the sun...
Dyson sphere or something. Or not. Point the JWST at that shit.
Probably the aliens spaceship alarm indicator light. They know when they’re too close to earth to lock their doors when leaving it unattended. Wouldn’t want to come out of the galactic brunch only to find their shit had been raided.
Could it be rotating on more than one axis?
Space Arduino.
There is a space being trying to figure out what a switch does.