We love seeing headlines about mysterious magnetic space objects “unlike anything astronomers have seen before.” In general, we tend to gravitate toward magnet-related news, but this story is particularly intriguing and attractive, so we wanted to share it!   Essentially, a research team responsible for mapping radio waves out in space discovered an object that releases a huge burst of energy three times per hour. It sends out a beam of radiation, crossing our line of sight, and for roughly 60 seconds every twenty minutes, it shines as one of the brightest radio sources in our sky.  Hypothesizing, the team believes this mysterious object could be a neutron star or a white dwarf. For those who might not be familiar with astronomy, these are the cores of stars that burned all the hydrogen they once used as fuel. Because it emits highly-polarized radio waves, observers believe it has a super strong magnetic field. The team’s lead astrophysicist, Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker says, “This object was appearing and disappearing over a few hours during our observations.” She calls it “kind of spooky” because there is nothing else out there that we’ve seen that does this.  Hurley-Walker also says this spinning magnetic space object is technically in our “galactic backyard;” in other words, about 4,000 lightyears away.  “Somehow, it’s converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more effectively than anything we’ve seen,” she adds. She and her team intend to keep track of the object and search for other similar objects.

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We always have one eye on the latest magnetic headlines. To be in this business is usually to have a serious curiosity, specifically for the science of magnets and magnetic fields. But if you’d prefer other magnetic stories and how-tos that are a little more “down to earth,” check out the rest of our blog.