THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
70 Falmouth Street      Portland, Maine 04103
(207) 780-4249      usm.maine.edu/planet
43.6667° N    70.2667° W  Altitude:  10 feet below sea level Founded
January 1970
2021-2022: LXXV
"Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know."
-Bertrand Russell


THE DAILY ASTRONOMER Monday, January 31, 2022
Something Strange in the Galactic Neighborhood


It's weird, even by astronomical standards.
It's close, at least by galactic standards.
No astronomer has ever seen the like of it...until now.

Discovered by Australian University Honors student Tyrone O'Doherty,
working as part of a research team led by Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker, this
bizarre object emits a burst of every for one full minute every eighteen
minutes. Data analysis has shown this object to be approximately 4000 light
years away, relatively close by galactic standards. Although astronomers
have previously observed radio transients, celestial objects that
periodically emit bursts of radio energy, this specimen is unique.

Whenever astronomers discover such an object, they pose theories as to its
identity based on prior observations of similar bodies. Some scientists
suggest that this "spooky object" could be a new type of *magnetar*, which
is a type of spinning neutron star. Neutron stars form when highly massive
stars collapse in on themselves at the end of their life cycle. The
resultant remnant is highly dense and spins on its axis rapidly, often
multiple times per second. Magnetars differ from other neutron stars in
that their magnetic fields are often thousands of times more powerful.*
Although the magnetar spin is also slower, none of the known magnetars have
exhibited behaviors consistent with this object.

[image: Magnetar-3b-450x580.gif]
Could the strange new object be a different type of magnetar?


Dr. Hurley-Walker does caution people not to assume that this new object is
evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence.   When spinning neutron stars,
or pulsars, were first discovered in 1967, many astronomers referred to
them as LGMs, or "Little Green Men," because they emitted pulses at such
regular intervals and consequently were initially thought to have been
deliberately programmed.   This new object is also not likely to be an LGM
because the radio energy it emits is spread over many wavelengths.

More observations are needed to determine this strange body's identity and
also to determine if others lurk out there in the galaxy.    For now, we
can only say that something strange has been found in our galactic
neighborhood.

(Insert clumsy Ghostbusters reference here.)

Tomorrow, the first part of the February 2022 night sky calendar.

* The average neutron star's magnetic field can be more than a million
times more powerful than Earth's.


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[image: IMG_20211219_072813.jpg]
Updated Miranda photo as promised