WhenProfessor Miroslav Filipovicof the Western Sydney University assigned a bright young sea captain ’s student a patch of the sky to study , he thought there might be something interesting in it . Filipovic was more right than he bed , with Joel Balzan turning up a unusual radio source that , even with further exploration , no one has been able to explain . The team go for next generations of radio telescopes will make sensory faculty of the anomaly .
Balzan was assigned to seem at an surface area including NGC 2082 , a spiral wandflower 60 million wanton - age away that has n’t been canvas as much as its neighbors . Besides looking very similar to our own extragalactic nebula , the most interesting thing about NGC 2082 before this work was the presence of a type II supernova there in 1992 .
Filipovic suspected NGC 2082 might have a supernova end worth studying . However , in a paper accepted forAstrophysics and Space Science(preprint onArXiv.org ) the pair and atomic number 27 - authors account something far more powerful and mysterious .
Balzan looked at data previously collected by ASKAP – Dromaius novaehollandiae but not previously study . Across NGC 2082 as a whole , he observe heightened radio emissions compare to the setting , as would be expect from any galaxy , with a small acme close to the astronomical eye . However , Balzan also found a much more powerful peak , named J054149.24–641813.7 , that look as though it is coming from halfway between NGC 2082 ’s kernel and its kayoed edge .
J054149.24–641813.7 is so potent , and the emission so interesting , Balzan and Filipovic look for prison term on the notable Parkes Dish to explore it in more particular and received favorable reception almost straight away . As Filipovic noted to IFLScience , that ’s exceptionally rarefied when accession to such a large scope is so private-enterprise .
However , the Parkes results , and studies with other types of telescope , just heighten the mystery . “ We see this ONLY in radio relative frequency , ” Filipovic told IFLScience , thus making it very improbable the beginning is a star or some other object within our galaxy , or at least close than NGC 2082 . On the other hand , it ’s too lustrous at those frequencies to be a late supernova in NGC 2082 , “ Or even a hypernova , ” Filipovic added .
That leaves the possible action that J054149.24–641813.7 has nothing to do with NGC 2082 at all , and in fact , is something much more distant like aquasar . The opportunity of something like that hiding behind NGC 2082 are just 1.2 percent , the author calculate , so it ’s not likely . On the other hand , it ’s less unbelievable than anything else they can call back of , Filipovic told IFLScience .
If J054149.24–641813.7 is a quasar or radio galaxy it will be almost impossible to determine that by realize the coltsfoot around it , as NGC 2082 will draw a blank out light at most oftenness .
One agency we may be capable to get some clues to J054149.24–641813.7 ’s nature would be to see whether it has been dip at the frequency known as HI . This part of the electromagnetic spectrum is absorb by indifferent hydrogen , so object far away lean to be fainter there . So far , no study with telescopes capable of detecting HIdimming with the appropriate resolution have been conducted in the relevant field . If one was , it might give us a good idea of the length to J054149.24–641813.7 , but that would only be the start of resolving the dubiousness of what it is . H / TPhys.org
