Object found in the Milky Way 'unlike anything astronomers have seen'

What id it's a red dwarf?

We're all smegged!

Fascinating stuff. They talk about these things in the present tense but the object is 4,000 light years from Earth: that is a very long way and any light or radio waves emanating from it and being observed on Earth now started out 4,000 years ago.

All I want to know is if thing is going to kill us or not.

All I want to know is if thing is going to kill us or not.

It won't.

Australian researchers have discovered a strange spinning object in the Milky Way

Space boomerang?

Don't look up, just don't!

The object, first spotted by a university student working on his undergraduate thesis, releases a huge burst of radio energy three times every hour.

That is a pretty impressive discovery for an undergrad student thesis. I think its a bit unfair that this student who discovered it remains anonymous, they should be given some credit publicly (if they want it of course).

Of course, it is likely a natural event. Still, it is inappropriate to outright and categorically dismiss other entities at work... which could be using a natural object as a beacon or such. Still... I am going with the Red Dwarf theory... we are smegged if they find out we have vindaloo...

"The object was first discovered by Curtin University Honours student Tyrone O'Doherty in a region of the Western Australian outback known as the Murchison Widefield Array, using a telescope and a new technique he had developed.

Mr O'Doherty was part of a team led by astrophysicist Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)."

Source – BBC News

When the James Webb telescope is fully online the wonders that we can behold. Fund NASA.

Alien weapon scanning the galaxy. One zap and we're all smegged.

Every German knows who’s out there and what the message means. lol

That undergrad who found this better be getting the recognition he/she deserves, rather than the professors taking all the credit.

Science is incredible. Much more interesting that stories in the old Bronze Age books and also based in reality to boot.

Original Media Release is here.

Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before - News and Events | Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

https://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/mysterious-object-unlike-anything-astronomers-have-seen-before/

Very exciting. Hopefully we will discover other forms of life one day.

Australian researchers have discovered a strange spinning object in the Milky Way they say is unlike anything astronomers have ever seen.

This discovery must have sent the astronomers into a spin.

Point James Webb at it when the telescope goes online. Were about see some serious sh.....

Very exciting. Hopefully we will discover other forms of life one day.

Extremely doubtful. I do think that we are not alone in the universe, but the universe is so big and the time scales so massive, making contact with an (intelligent) alien race would be like asking an ant in Australia to meet an ant in Canada face to face and giving them five minutes to get it done.

I don't know what it is,but after all,it's just a grain of sand for the vast universe.

I see an eye in the lower left of the picture. The face is looking to the left. That IS unusual.

It's not. Your brain is just seeing something that's not there because people like pattern recognition, even among random things. See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galle_(Martian_crater)

Hell's teeth, make a wild guess.

"But that's quite unusual as well. We only know of one white dwarf pulsar, and nothing as great as this," Hurley-Walker said. "Of course, it could be something that we've never even thought of -- it could be some entirely new type of object."

4,000 light-years from Earth we can assume ET is not ordering a take-away

Student is reported on the BBC as Tyrone O’Doherty.

Lots of transient are known but not bursting for as long as this one. That is a huge amount of energy being output on so regular a basis, will be interesting to see what they discover.

Aliens, nope, Express sister is quite right. The probability of our overlapping with another technological civilisation in space and time is infinitesimal. Though that does not preclude the existence of other intelligent life somewhere in the vastness of the universe and somewhere in the depths of time both past and future, just not likely here and now.

If there is a perspicacity with the technology and capabilities.

"If you do all of the mathematics, you find that they shouldn't have enough power to produce these kind of radio waves every 20 minutes," Hurley-Walker said. "It just shouldn't be possible."*

So how would planet earth communicate?........

If a message was intended, with technology capable to transmit over 4,000 light-years, why not simply pick up the telephone?

If there is extraterrestrial life out there. It came, saw, and walked away.

"Beam me up, Scotty"

Look at the state planet earth is in

It is not a terrestrial holiday hot spot!

White dwarfs are by definition not bright, and this object is very bright.

A special type of magnetar (a type of neutron star)? There are only 31 known magnetars so far, so, maybe?

It's distance of 4,000 light years does not preclude its affecting Earth. "....in 2004 a flare on the surface of a magnetar compressed the magnetic field of the Earth.....from 50,000 light years!" - EarthSky, 6-13-2021

That it is controlled by an intelligent source should not be ruled out. Who can say that someone or thing would not choose to use such a signal as a beacon to the universe, a way of saying, "We are here."

It's too big to be a space station!"

""releases a huge burst of radio energy three times every hour.""

I think it's my Frisby spun out of control back in 1988 never returned, it sure sound like something it would do, LOL

I am putting my grandpa WW2 helmet on starting Tomorrow.

This the most intriguing thread of the day.

If there is intelligence out their capable of communicating over a distance of 4,000 light years, maybe this life form could point our political global elite in the right direction.

Because all have lost there way

KumagaijinToday  02:54 pm JST

Australian researchers have discovered a strange spinning object in the Milky Way

Space boomerang?

Space disco ball I'd say and we haven't been invited to the party.

If it went undetected by teams of scientists with access to global radio telescope arrays and space-based sensors, only to be found by more or less an amateur (who presumably wasn't using such instrumentation), it makes you wonder what else is out there still undetected.

4,000 light years is rather close by, when you consider the galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, and that there are billions of other galaxies in the observable universe.

A light year is nearly 10 trillion kilometres, so it will certainly take us some time to visit something 4000 light years away.

I WANT THOSE STONES!

No one would have believed in this century

That human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space

No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized

As someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water

Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets

And yet, across the gulf of space

Minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes

And slowly and surely

They drew their plans against us

Fascinating!

If this is of alien origin, the one thing it may tell us is that 18.18 Earth minutes equates to a defined unit of alien time.

"student Tyrone O'Doherty" is a smart kid.

Of course it might just be one of those Ski-Jumpers from the winter Olympics.

May I suggest that we focus more on what is going on in this planet first before we spend enormous amount of R&D on something that is simply out of reach.

May I suggest that we focus more on what is going on in this planet first before we spend enormous amount of R&D on something that is simply out of reach

In the fullness of time it probably won't be out of reach. At some point in the future man has to become a multi-planet species or perish forever. When the Sun reaches the end of the main phase it will balloon into a red giant and consume or incinerate all of the inner planets in our solar system. Earth will have become uninhabitable long before then as the Sun gradually consumes its hydrogen and slowly heats up to the point of vaporizing all the water on Earth. At the end of the red giant phase the Sun it will collapse upon itself, blow off a nebula and become a white dwarf. Fortunately man has a lot of time to master space travel and undoubtedly will. Physics suggest that with enough energy it is possible to warp space time around a space craft and travel faster than the speed of light. The so-called "Tic-Tacs" recorded by US Navy pilots and countless TR-3B (if that is what it really is) sightings and videos suggest some entity has already mastered this technology.

You have no data about the object and can't determine what it is. Ditto for what my brain is doing.

You are simply expressing a belief that nothing could be that weird. A good scientist waits for data, and avoids making analyses without it. I see an eye in the photo. That doesn't necessarily mean it is an eye. I'll wait for more data, and will see if the next photo has a nose and a chin.

You have no way of knowing that I don't have all the data, or that I do know exactly what your brain is doing.

You are simply expressing a belief that I don't. A good scientists waits for proof, and avoids making analyses without it. There is no eye in the photo. You are anthropomorphising the cosmos. It necessarily isn't an eye. Eyes are not made of stars. The next photo will not have a nose or a chin, even if you think you see one.