It's a bird! It's a plane! It's — wait, what exactly is it?
Australian astronomers have discovered a strange spinning object in earth's "galactic backyard" which they say is unlike anything they’ve seen before.
The mysterious object, found in the Milky Way, releases a burst of energy three times per hour — a frequency never observed before, according to research released on Wednesday.
"That was completely unexpected," astrophysicist Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said in a release. She led the team that made the sighting. "It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there's nothing known in the sky that does that."
The object releases the same beam of radiation, one of the brightest radio sources in the sky, every 18.18 minutes, like "clockwork," Hurley-Walker told Yahoo!. While other objects in the galaxy switch on and off, known as "transients," none of them do so at such a rapid frequency like the one observed.
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"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 told the outlet.
"It just shouldn't be possible."
The original discovery was made by a student at Cutis University Honours named Tyrone Dohery who was working on his thesis. He observed the object using a telescope in the area of the Australian outback known as Murchison Widefield Array.
While there is a lot unknown surrounding the discovery, researchers believe that the strange phenomenon takes place around 4,000 lightyears from earth, in its "galactic backyard," according to Hurley-Walker. The object is also both incredibly bright and has a strong magnetic field.
Hurley-Walker admitted to Yahoo! that she initially speculated the object could have resulted from aliens, however concluded that because it was observed across a wide range of frequencies, it must come from a natural source.
The research group theorized that it could be either a neutron star or a white dwarf, both of which are collapsed cores of stars, with an "ultra powerful magnetic field." However, it could also be a new object entirely.
"More detections will tell astronomers whether this was a rare one-off event or a vast new population we'd never noticed before," Hurley-Walker said.
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