Astronomers have uncovered a bizarre star, ASKAP J1832, that pulses radio waves and X-rays every 44 minutes—thousands of times slower than typical pulsars. This rare object also dims dramatically over months, making it the first of its kind.
The discovery, involving NASA’s Chandra and Australia’s SKA Pathfinder telescopes, challenges current astrophysical models. Is it an old magnetar, an ultra-magnetic white dwarf, or something entirely new? Scientists are thrilled by its perplexing nature and are racing to find others like it.
A New Celestial Mystery Emerges
Astronomers have uncovered a star unlike anything ever seen, offering intriguing new clues about a mysterious class of cosmic objects.
Using a combination of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the SKA [Square Kilometer Array] Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia’s Wajarri Country, scientists studied a strange object called ASKAP J1832−0911, or ASKAP J1832 for short. This star-like object is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth, and the findings were published May 28 in the journal Nature.
A Strange New Signal Pattern
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a rare group known as “long period radio transients,” first identified in 2022. These unusual objects emit radio signals in a slow, pulsing pattern—far slower than typical pulsars, which flash many times per second. In contrast, ASKAP J1832 pulses every 44 minutes, making it an extreme and puzzling outlier.
But there’s more. When researchers looked at the same object using Chandra, they found that the star also emits X-ray pulses on the exact same 44-minute cycle. This marks the first time ever that X-rays have been seen pulsing in sync with radio waves in a long period radio transient.
Behavior Unlike Anything Observed
“Astronomers have looked at countless stars with all kinds of telescopes and we’ve never seen one that acts this way,” said first author Dr. Ziteng Wang from the Curtin University node at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) Australia. “It’s thrilling to see a new type of behavior for stars.”
However, that is not all ASKAP J1832 does. Using Chandra and the SKA Pathfinder, the team found that ASKAP J1832 also dropped off in X-rays and radio waves dramatically over the course of six months. This combination of the 44-minute cycle in X-rays and radio waves in addition to the months-long changes is unlike anything astronomers have seen in the Milky Way galaxy.
Scientists are now racing to figure out if ASKAP J1832 is representative of long period radio transients and whether its bizarre behavior helps unravel the origin of these objects.
“We looked at several different possibilities involving neutron stars and white dwarfs, either in isolation or with companion stars,” said co-author Dr. Nanda Rea of the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain. “So far nothing exactly matches up, but some ideas work better than others.”
A Magnetar — or Something New?
The research team argues that ASKAP J1832 is unlikely to be a pulsar or a neutron star pulling material from a companion star because its properties do not match the typical intensities of radio and X-ray signals of those objects. Some of ASKAP J1832’s properties could be explained by a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field, called a magnetar, with an age of more than half a million years. However, other features of ASKAP J1832 — such as its bright and variable radio emission — are difficult to explain for such a relatively old magnetar.
On the sky, ASKAP J1832 appears to lie within a supernova remnant, the remains of an exploded star, which often contain a neutron star formed by the supernova. However, the research team determined that the proximity is probably a coincidence and the two are not associated with each other, encouraging them to consider the possibility that ASKAP J1832 does not contain a neutron star. They concluded that an isolated white dwarf does not explain the data but that a white dwarf star with a companion star might. However, it would require the strongest magnetic field ever known for a white dwarf in our galaxy.
“We will continue to hunt for clues about what is happening with this object, and we’ll look for similar objects,” said co-author Dr. Tong Bao of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy. “Finding a mystery like this isn’t frustrating — it’s what makes science exciting!”
Changing Brightness in Real Time
Chandra detected ASKAP J1832 in X-rays in two observations taken in February 2024, at a time when the source was unusually intense in radio waves. A third Chandra observation happened in August 2024, when the source was about 1,000 times fainter in radio waves than in February, but no X-rays were seen. That lack of a Chandra detection shows that the source had dimmed by at least a factor of ten in X-rays from the initial observation.
Another team led by Di Li from Tsinghua University in China independently discovered this source using the DAocheng Radio Telescope, though they did not report the X-ray behavior described here.
Reference: “Detection of X-ray emission from a bright long-period radio transient” by Ziteng Wang, Nanda Rea, Tong Bao, David L. Kaplan, Emil Lenc, Zorawar Wadiasingh, Jeremy Hare, Andrew Zic, Akash Anumarlapudi, Apurba Bera, Paz Beniamini, A. J. Cooper, Tracy E. Clarke, Adam T. Deller, J. R. Dawson, Marcin Glowacki, Natasha Hurley-Walker, S. J. McSweeney, Emil J. Polisensky, Wendy M. Peters, George Younes, Keith W. Bannister, Manisha Caleb, Kristen C. Dage, Clancy W. James, Mansi M. Kasliwal, Viraj Karambelkar, Marcus E. Lower, Kaya Mori, Stella Koch Ocker, Miguel Pérez-Torres, Hao Qiu, Kovi Rose, Ryan M. Shannon, Rhianna Taub, Fayin Wang, Yuanming Wang, Zhenyin Zhao, N. D. Ramesh Bhat, Dougal Dobie, Laura N. Driessen, Tara Murphy, Akhil Jaini, Xinping Deng, Joscha N. Jahns-Schindler, Y. W. Joshua Lee, Joshua Pritchard, John Tuthill and Nithyanandan Thyagarajan, 28 May 2025, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09077-w
The Chandra X-ray Observatory is NASA’s flagship mission for X-ray astronomy, providing unprecedented views of high-energy phenomena in the universe such as black holes, neutron stars, supernova remnants, and galaxy clusters. Launched in 1999, Chandra orbits high above Earth to detect X-rays that are otherwise absorbed by the atmosphere.
The program is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, while scientific and flight operations are overseen by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center—with science operations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations handled from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Chandra’s sharp vision and long operational lifespan have made it a cornerstone of modern astrophysics, helping scientists probe some of the most extreme environments in the cosmos.
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.
4 Comments
Scientists are thrilled by its perplexing nature and are racing to find others like it. The discovery challenges current astrophysical models.
Today’s physics has constructed a more shameless pseudoscientific framework than the geocentric model, using “two sets of artificially counter rotating cobalt-60 objects that are mirror images of each other, whether symmetrical or not”. The initiator is Physics Review. The so-called peer-reviewed publications, including Physical Review Letters, Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Bulletin, Innovation, etc., vigorously uphold this pseudo scientific framework. They collude together, cite each other, mass produce pseudoscientific papers, and deceive the public and artificial intelligence (AI) with so-called impact factors (IF). Let us continue to witness the dirtiest and ugliest era in the history of science and humanities with facts.
For two sets of artificially counter-rotating cobalt-60 systems, the mirror relationship holds regardless of their symmetry. This constitutes nothing less than a public insult to the intelligence of the masses by today’s physics peer-reviewed publications. Generalizing this artificial mirror relationship to natural chirality is an even more brazen act of intellectual dishonesty.
If a law of nature can be violated—whether by human intervention or nature itself—can it still be called a law? With the rise of artificial intelligence, some so-called peer-reviewed publications (including Physical Review Letters, Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Science Bulletin, Innovation, etc.) and their vested interest groups, which vigorously defend pseudoscience, are destined to be condemned by the public. They will leave nothing but baseness, filth, and ugliness in the annals of scientific history.
We miss honest scientists. If researchers are interested, please browse https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/1915292792520966679, https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/31800025617 and https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/1916783850291466914.
Says the biggest pseudo-science spewer on this site. Can’t resist the chance to spew another dose of your nonsense, strung-together words, can’t you?
No one is going to click your pathetic little link. Get over yourself and get mental health help.
He has been at it for more than 5 years now. He spams without any consideration for others, and he doesn’t have the self awareness to realize that people are ignoring him.
@TheHeck, @AG3.
Thank you two for your sincere and heartfelt comments. You two are using facts to tell the public how excellent today‘s physics and so-called peer-reviewed publications are in popularizing pseudoscience . You are also fortunate to allow the public to continue witnessing the dirtiest and ugliest epoch in the history of science and humanities with facts.
YES. No ONE AND YOU is going to click MY pathetic little link https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/1917878197971816654.