Strange star flashes like a beacon

New pulsar types are found, but pulses of intermittent pulses are different from those of pulsed pulses. Astronomers have come across a strange star form that emits intermittent radio waves. They resemble pulsar at radio pulse, but are random, not periodically like pulsars.

" Finding such a new form is quite unusual ," said Andrew Lyne, an astronomer from the Jodrell Bank Observatory, University of Manchester. " It opened a new field in astronomy, " he said.

The quirky star is recognized by the radio telescope Parks in New South Wales, Australia. So far, 11 similar objects have been seen, and called them Rotating Radio Transients (RRAT). After a random period of 4 minutes to 3 hours, these stars burst into a wave of radio waves that lasted for 2-30 seconds.

Pulse pulses make them seem like pulsars - neutron stars spinning very fast and steadily release a beam of radio waves, like a beacon. Every time that beam sweeps over the earth, our radio telescopes will hear a click.

However, no one has ever seen a pulsar-like object releasing periodic waves of waves like RRAT.

The team encountered RRAT while hunting down pulsars. " There are 11 regions in the sky where we all occasionally see flashes, " Lyne recalled. " It is hard to believe that these flashes come from the universe, because they look very much like artificial lights ."

The team later realized that although the times of the flashes were very different, they were always multiples of several smaller time units, between 0.4 and 7 seconds, depending on the source.

Scientists conclude that RRAT may be a previously unknown form of neutron star, which rotates periodically (like a pulsar) but only occasionally emits a beam of radio waves. Asked about the reason for this incident, Lyne admitted there was no evidence.

Vicky Kaspi, an astrophysicist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, points out that some of the previous pulsars were also known for their ability to generate non-periodic extra pulses, although astronomers failed to explain that.

" Maybe the RRATs are doing the same, " - Vicky Kaspi conjectured - "it's just that their periodic radio broadcasts are so faint that we can't get it. "

T. An