this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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On Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new astronomical enigma. The new object, GPM J1839–10, behaves a bit like a pulsar, sending out regular bursts of radio energy. But the physics that drives pulsars means that they'd stop emitting if they slowed down too much, and almost every pulsar we know of blinks at least once per minute.

GPM J1839–10 takes 22 minutes between pulses. We have no idea what kind of physics or what kind of objects can power that.

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[–] Aggregate@lemmy.world 62 points 1 year ago (1 children)

22 minute pulses? Someone out there is playing through Outer Wilds.

[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

That was such a good game

[–] djmarcone@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Road trip! Let's go check it out!

[–] Holodeck_Moriarty@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How much should I pack? 2, 3 changes of clothes?

[–] djmarcone@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I don't know, I always over pack, so...

[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 6 points 1 year ago

Make sure to also grab 100 tampons, just in case.

[–] TwoGems@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] Feonid@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

make sure to bring a towel

[–] luoji@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

We're going on an adventure.

[–] db2@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Spin on the Y axis? We wouldn't see what isn't shot at us.

[–] KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

the great cosmic wobble, of course!

[–] RagingSnarkasm@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

It's the road crew lights that the Vogons put up whenever they are about to put in a new hyperspace bypass.

Has anyone seen my towel?

It's our galactic smoke detector signaling that it needs a new battery.

[–] Midnight_Ice@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is super neat. I hope they're able to figure out what it is.

[–] Centillionaire@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Midnight_Ice@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

I know you're being sarcastic, but that was my first thought as well haha

[–] palordrolap@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

If it isn't a magnetar, my money's on it being a binary object like a quasar orbiting something massive. The massive object will be stabilising the quasar's spin in much the same way our Moon stabilises Earth's axis somewhat, but the beam of this object won't cross Earth unless it's at the right point in its orbit.

One might expect a 22 minute orbit around a massive object to have decayed a bit over 35 years (that would definitely be something to test for), but there's nothing that says the orbit or rotation period is 22 minutes, only that there's a resonance of 22 minutes coming from some interaction or another.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

GPM J1839–10 takes 22 minutes between pulses. We have no idea what kind of physics or what kind of objects can power that.

[Googles name of object.] 2nd result:

The newfound object is a type of neutron star known as a magnetar.

Science!

[–] the_fuzz@lemm.ee 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Read the article:

Another option involving them is the magnetar, a neutron star with an intense magnetic field that's prone to energetic outbursts. But those outbursts also generate more energetic photons, and the researchers checked the site of GPM J1839–10 with an X-ray telescope and saw nothing. Plus, magnetars are thought to rotate more quickly than the 22-minute gap implies, so they're probably out as well.

Just because some random Google result says it’s a magnetar doesn’t make it true. Considering the team that discovered it doesn’t make that claim and as far as I’m aware no one else has looked at this particular star, I think it unlikely that there’s a definitive, widely accepted explanation.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why I don't trust Google excerpt results or Ai answers despite being widely accepted. They miss nuance

[–] Shikadi@wirebase.org 5 points 1 year ago

These days I feel like they're flat out wrong nearly a third of the time

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

That's the most likely answer, but they're not certain. As they don't even have a solid theory of how a star can spin so slowly and still be this active.

[–] Teon@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

It's a buoy that indicates the deep end and the danger of sharks.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I'd really be getting scared if it was every 33 minutes..cylons? No thanks

[–] shotgun_ninja@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

That's just them skipping to the next episode.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

So sort of like the space Willie Nelson.

[–] timelighter@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

that's just my uncle Larry