A bizarre “zombie star” is intriguing astronomers

A collapsing star about 13,000 light years away from us is so intriguing that scientists believe it shouldn’t exist.

A neutron star was first detected a year ago by the ASKAP telescope. They called it ASKAP J1839-0756, and this star, which is 13 thousand light years from our planet, is rotating at a record pace of 6.45 hours per rotation.

It is a long period radio transientthe name given to compact objects that emit pulses of radio waves at a much slower rate, says .

This is the first transient discovered with a interpulso: a weaker impulse halfway between the main impulses, coming from the opposite magnetic pole.

Initially, it was believed that this star could be a white dwarf that died. “But we have never seen an isolated white dwarf emitting radio pulses and our calculations suggest that It’s too big to be a white dwarf isolated, based on the properties of the impulse”, explains Joshua Lee, author of the published in Nature this Wednesday.

There is also the possibility of being a magnetarthat is, a neutron star with a magnetic field 10 billion times greater than that of the strongest MRI machines on Earth. But if it is a magnetar, this object emits frequencies with the slowest period ever recorded.

“This new object is completely rewriting what we thought we knew about the radio emission mechanisms of the neutron stars of the last 60 years”, says another author, Manisha Caleb.

“It’s definitely one of the strangest objects of recent times, because we didn’t think such things existed. But now we are finding them. If it is a magnetar, it is certainly unique among the population of neutron stars.”

“In recent years, we have seen objects that seem to cross this line of deathbut they continue to transmit on radio frequency”, he also says. “They are like zombie stars where you don’t expect them to be alive, but they’re still alive and they’re pulsing.”