It was a college student, Tyrone O´Doherty, who first discovered an object that emitted enormous long beams of radiation for a total of 18 minutes. He made the discovery with the help of a telescope and new technology he himself has developed.
O´Doherty is part of a research team led by astrophysicist Natasha Hurley-Walker at the Curtin University node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR). The research team is working to map radio waves in the universe.
Flashed at intervals
– The object appeared and disappeared repeatedly over a period of a few hours, Hurley-Walker explains in a press release from the university.
The unusual thing about this object was the intervals it flashed in, where the object could be “on” for one minute.
Know nothing behaves like that
– We were totally taken to bed. It was almost a little scary, even for an astrophysicist, because there is nothing we know that behaves like that, says Hurley-Walker to BBC.
ICRAR has managed to determine that the object is about 4000 light years away from our planet, shines very brightly and has a very strong magnetic field. Researchers are now working to find out what the object may be.
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