[HN Gopher] Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have s...
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Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before
Author : signa11
Score : 130 points
Date : 2022-01-27 11:11 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.icrar.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.icrar.org)
| ianai wrote:
| It radiates a signal around every 18 minutes. It sounds like a
| pulsar. How is it unlike "Mysterious object unlike anything
| astronomers have seen before"? This being the current title.
| Trombone12 wrote:
| The abstract of the article suggests it is a magnetar, which
| depending on your mood could be counted as a type of pulsar,
| though it's probably more sensible to label both as types of
| neutron stars.
|
| > By measuring the dispersion of the radio pulses with respect
| to frequency, we have localized the source to within our own
| Galaxy and suggest that it could be an ultra-long-period
| magnetar.
| dekhn wrote:
| but... magnetars aren't mysterious or unlike anything
| astronomers have seen. The most the press release says is
| that it's brighter or closer than previous ones.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The article is quite clear that this one exhibits
| characteristics predicted, but not previously observed, and
| with some surprises.
|
| > But Dr Anderson said finding something that turned on for
| a minute was really weird.
|
| > Dr Hurley-Walker said the observations match a predicted
| astrophysical object called an 'ultra-long period
| magnetar'.
|
| > "But nobody expected to directly detect one like this
| because we didn't expect them to be so bright. "Somehow
| it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more
| effectively than anything we've seen before."
| dekhn wrote:
| this is not what astronomers or physicists think is
| mysterious. Just unexpected, and within the bounds of
| normal physical science.
|
| Everybody who is complaining that the PR about the paper
| is clickbait is right. The PR is just clickbait. The
| paper is not.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| If I saw a bright pink duck I would wonder how that duck
| came to be. If someone called it's origins mysterious I
| wouldn't write a string of angry HN posts about it, I
| don't think.
| me_me_me wrote:
| Your analogy is incorrect.
|
| The existence of this megastar was falls under
| theoretically possible but never discovered.
|
| Analogous would be an albino duck, existence inferred
| from albinos existing in every animal, but say an albino
| duck was not observed before.
|
| Discovering bright pink duck would be akin to discovering
| something that our models cannot account for or explain.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Again, from the article.
|
| > "But nobody expected to directly detect one like this
| because we didn't expect them to be so bright. "Somehow
| it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more
| effectively than anything we've seen before."
|
| That's interesting, and apparently unexpected.
| c22 wrote:
| I've seen pink flamingos so I think my existing model of
| "bird things" could accommodate a pink duck.
| dekhn wrote:
| Flamingos are pink because they eat pink shrimp.
|
| The difference is that pinkness in animals is specific to
| species and we have explanations for why they are pink.
| And we also have explanations for albinism, but it's not
| limited to specific species- it's found widely, across
| the complex life domain.
|
| Find a pink duck? OK, the neighbor painted a duck. Find a
| population of pink ducks that reproduce and their
| children are all pink? OK, now we have an interesting
| situation.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cool. Now:
|
| > "But nobody expected to directly detect one like this
| because we didn't expect them to be so bright. "Somehow
| it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more
| effectively than anything we've seen before."
|
| Why is this magnetar brighter than expected, and how does
| it convert energy more efficiently?
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, that's the interesting scientific question. The PR
| person saw that and somehow got very excited! The reality
| is, this object will be placed in a database and people
| will probably follow it up, but not with high priority.
|
| Astronomers have hundreds of years of experience in
| seeing things in the sky that couldn't be explained, and
| either were "entirely new thing we never saw before"
| (like pulsars) and even theorists suggesting looking for
| things that only got recognized once we knew what black
| holes were. This is common. I wouldn't describe it as
| mysterious, just unexpected.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Yes, that's the interesting scientific question.
|
| One might even say it's a _mystery_ at the moment.
| Vetch wrote:
| I'm unable to reply to your latest comment and must leave
| presently so I will reply here. I feel the perspective
| you've taken downplays things a bit.
|
| The history of astronomy spans thousands of years, a high
| number of unusual observations will sure to have
| accumulated over time. But finding an unpredicted aspect
| of a previously unobserved class of objects is an
| exciting event carrying a relatively high amount of
| _surprisal_. The involved astronomers are clearly excited
| and being reserved with language is to be expected of
| formal papers. While not an astronomer, I find the
| resulting changes in observation patterns exciting to
| read about and look forward to learning about the unusual
| radiative properties of such magnetars.
| dekhn wrote:
| Literally the last 200 hundred years of astronomy have
| been a series of "surprisal" that ended up being "part of
| the ouevre" 10 years later. Magnetars are a fairly niche
| area, as are neutron star in general.
|
| Neutron stars _are_ really surprising, actually, in the
| sense that their physics look like nothing we have on
| earth. We will probably be finding unexpected neutron
| stars and things like slow magnetars for quite some time.
| Vetch wrote:
| I understand the problem of sensationalism but maybe
| you're downplaying this one too much? The object pulses
| at an unusual frequency that's never before been
| observed, that's something with high _suprisal_ relative
| to what 's known.
|
| > We find that the source pulses every 18.18 min, an
| unusual periodicity that has, to our knowledge, not been
| observed previously.
|
| The mysterious (as yet unexplained) aspect of it will
| require updating models's physics to account for its
| unusual emission properties. The lead researcher herself
| distinguished it from known types of objects and states
| "completely unexpected [object]...nobody thought would be
| able to produce this kind of emission".
| dekhn wrote:
| I have no problem with the statement "completely
| unexpected that nobody thought would be able to produce
| this kind of emission".
|
| Nothing is being downplayed; the history of astronomy is
| littered with events like this. If they get enough data
| and can explain it, astronomy will be updated slightly.
| dekhn wrote:
| If I saw a bright pink duck I would expect that a
| neighbor's kid had painted the duck. Horses, not zebras,
| unless you're on the african savannah.
| isaacimagine wrote:
| Did the kid paint the radio waves too?
|
| In all seriousness, why is it brighter than expected?
| What's the expected brightness for such an object, and
| how many error bars is it away from this value?
| dekhn wrote:
| See the text after Figure 4,
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04272-x Since
| I am not an expert astronomer (just a helpful
| computational person who has worked in the field) I can't
| give you a detailed ELI5, but they talk a lot about how
| it looks different from existing examples, and how to
| find more examples of this type (so you can do surveys;
| modern astronomers don't like to study one-offs, as they
| are biased, and instead prefer to accumulate a larger
| sample of instances).
| [deleted]
| ehnto wrote:
| There is value to pop-sci's romantic relationship with
| new discoveries in science. I don't think it hurts anyone
| in the target demographic to enable their sense of
| curiosity and wonder. Clickbait is hardly a fair term, as
| this article hardly shares a floor with true clickbait
| like false death rumours, hate and fear mongering, and
| outright falsehoods.
| dekhn wrote:
| Of all the replies to my comments, this is the best one
| I've seen. You're right that science reporting should
| instill wonder, it probably isn't that excessive to say
| it's mysterious or bizarre (my complaint is more the
| "we've never seen something like this so far" but let's
| not get into the semiotics of unsupervised clustering),
| and it's unfair to lump this in with Really Bad
| Clickbait.
|
| I just have a strong aversion to the science->PR->news
| hype cycle and that's what happened here.
| adrianN wrote:
| It says in the article that pulses from pulsars are usually
| much shorter than what is detected from this object.
| MauranKilom wrote:
| > pulses from pulsars are usually much shorter
|
| ...and more frequent.
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Then it's a slow pulsar LOL Sorry, I had to make it :)
| delcaran wrote:
| Article says it's a theoretically possible object
| described as "slow magnetar".
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Don't be so serious my friend, it was an easy joke, i
| know :)
| ianai wrote:
| Is that really that mysterious? Just seems they went out
| of their way for clickbaity title.
| Vetch wrote:
| The mysterious (unpredicted/as yet unexplained) aspect is
| the precise physics of its emission properties. It's a
| refinement of known physics sure, but that doesn't make
| it less interesting. Not unlike how finally completing a
| full physics accounting for how bicycles remain upright
| would be fascinating even if positively pedestrian.
| dekhn wrote:
| That's correct. The original paper doesn't call it
| mysterious, just "unusual". Science PR people are under a
| lot of stress to get pageviews.
| rbanffy wrote:
| The original description was most likely "hmmm... that's
| funny".
| equalsione wrote:
| Pulsars usually "pulse" very rapidly and in very short
| bursts[0]. This one pulses only once every 18 minutes, but
| in bursts that seem to last for a minute. Some articles
| mention the possibility of a star-quake which as I _think_
| could be caused by either further decay of the magnetar, or
| the magnetar absorbing more mass
|
| [0] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-
| astronomy/r....
| valyagolev wrote:
| to continue our idle lazy speculation game "explain the title
| without really reading", perhaps it's just doppler effect...
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Doppler effect would reduce both the emission interval as
| well as the radio frequency. Not to mention that an object
| (which is comparatively close to us, i.e. not just red-
| shifted due to distance) would have to move at very close
| to the speed of light to be red-shifted that much. Now
| _that_ would be unlike anything we 've seen before...
| joshuahedlund wrote:
| Because the level of "unlike"-ness exists on a spectrum, so the
| headline can be technically correct while implying a position
| on the spectrum much farther than it actually is.
| BatteryMountain wrote:
| Interstellar light house?
| rbanffy wrote:
| We can already use pulsars for that, but this one being so
| unique would be very convenient. OTOH, you won't be able to
| make multiple observations in a short period.
| pizza234 wrote:
| Gist of the article:
|
| > Dr Hurley-Walker said the observations match a predicted
| astrophysical object called an 'ultra-long period magnetar'.
|
| > "It's a type of slowly spinning neutron star that has been
| predicted to exist theoretically," she said.
|
| > "But nobody expected to directly detect one like this because
| we didn't expect them to be so bright.
|
| > "Somehow it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much
| more effectively than anything we've seen before."
| colordrops wrote:
| Reading the article would dispel your confusion.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Oh, not another one!
| mabbo wrote:
| > The object was discovered by Curtin University Honours student
| Tyrone O'Doherty using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)
| telescope in outback Western Australia and a new technique he
| developed.
|
| > "It's exciting that the source I identified last year has
| turned out to be such a peculiar object," said Mr O'Doherty, who
| is now studying for a PhD at Curtin.
|
| That must be exciting, to make a cool discovery like this during
| your undergrad.
| albert_e wrote:
| sounds like the opening of the movie DONT LOOK UP!
| belter wrote:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04272-x
| dekhn wrote:
| "A radio transient with unusually slow periodic emission"
| sounds a lot better than "MYSTERIOUS OBJECT UNLIKE ANYTHING
| ASTRONOMERS HAVE SEEN BEFORE" (yes, the PR uses all-caps) to
| me.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Why not a "slowly rotating magnetar" would probably be
| better.
| omnicognate wrote:
| HN discussion on this is entirely about aliens, clickbait and
| pink ducks (for some reason). Come on people.
|
| Given this thing is only 4000 light years I way I'd like to know
| if there's any chance of it causing some kind of apocalypse at
| some point. I guess if it's a magnetar the gamma-ray-burst-
| producing event in its life is already past?
| varelse wrote:
| Anything beyond ~50 light years is out of range.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Potentially a direct hit from a GRB few kiloparsecs away
| would cause issues, but for extinction level events the GRB
| needs to be a lot closer.
|
| This doesn't seem to be a GRB. It's more likely to be a
| magnetar, and at this distance there's nothing at all to
| worry about.
| varelse wrote:
| The concept of anything a light year away or more being
| able to wipe out life on Earth is pretty mind-boggling to
| me. I wish we focused more on things that were mind-
| boggling rather than mind killing. But that's just not how
| this culture is playing out.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Is this the kind of thing they'll be able to point the James Webb
| Telescope at and say "Aha, here's what this thing is!" ? I don't
| know enough about the James Webb Telescope or astronomy to know
| what it's going to be looking at, but I know it was something
| about light spectrum or something.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| If you're asking whether we could image the actual magnetar
| (assuming that's what they observed) with JWST, the answer is
| no. If it's a magnetar, the object itself is less than 100 km
| in diameter. JWST has an angular resolution of about .1 arc
| seconds, which at 4000 light years distance means it can
| resolve things that are billions, not tens, of kilometers
| (think the size of Pluto's orbit) in extent. The magnetar is
| probably also dark in the infrared spectrum JWST can see well.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Think Hubble could do the same since it so close. My basic
| understanding is James Webb is better suited for ultra deep
| space observations, because it doesn't care about dust as much.
| Trombone12 wrote:
| No, the reason JWST is better for ultra deep space is because
| the expansion of the universe redshifts the peak of the light
| emitted by the really old stars into the IR band. Also it has
| a bigger mirror so it can see fainter stuff, which things
| further away tend to be.
| nsilvestri wrote:
| No, this is a radio source and JWST is primarily an infrared
| observatory.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That we've detected a radio source doesn't mean there's not
| something there in infrared as well, though.
| eternalban wrote:
| No that's the entire point of calling it a 'magnetar'.
| These things convert the magnetic field into radio waves.
| That's the only thing that is being emitted and
| 'observable'. This specific specimen matches a theoretical
| variant that has an ultra long cycle.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That doesn't mean there's nothing to see.
|
| Here's a magnetar imaged with infrared via the Spitzer
| telescope: https://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/image/ssc2008-
| 08a-ghostly-ri...
| dekhn wrote:
| from your link: "The magnetar itself is not visible in
| this image, as it has not been detected at infrared
| wavelengths (it has been seen in X-ray light)."
|
| so what they are imaging is indirect effects of the
| magnetar, not the magnetar itself.
| postalrat wrote:
| And when you eyes look at your computer screen they only
| see the light coming off it, not the actual screen.
| dekhn wrote:
| yes. that's direct imaging. Your eyes are detecting
| photons emitted directly by the source at their emission
| frequency. Indirect imaging a monitor would be looking at
| nearby reflective objects that absorbed those photons and
| emitted different ones (fluorescence, phosphorescence,
| heated object...)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Re-read my post.
|
| > That we've detected a radio source doesn't mean there's
| not something there in infrared as well, though.
|
| The Spitzer image demonstrates there may be value to
| pointing something like JWST at it. Existence of a
| remnant tells us what probably made it, size of that
| remnant tells us how old it is, etc. ( _Lack_ of a
| remnant would be interesting, too.)
| vanusa wrote:
| And yet, with a clickbait title we've seen 10,000 times before
| mmettler wrote:
| Is it sending primes?
| w-m wrote:
| At the rate of 1 bit in 18 minutes (assuming to just coding the
| signal as off/on every period), that's 34.2 years to transmit 1
| MB. Without error correction. If its aliens, they're not in a
| particular rush to transmit the latest weather data.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But see, you're not thinking as a Vegan. They'd be using
| higher harmonics to encode much more data than just the one
| bit. I thought we had all learned this by now! Back to
| remedial sci-fi for all of you!
| akomtu wrote:
| The period - 1080 seconds - is interesting by itself. If I were
| an alien and wanted to broadcast some important number, an
| ultra stable magnetar would be my top choice.
| mmacvicarprett wrote:
| It is just an alien intergalactic VOR
| kseistrup wrote:
| You know it's clickbait when you see the word "mysterious" in a
| headline. Why not simply write "Celestial object unlike anything
| astronomers have seen before."
| throwhauser wrote:
| It actually is mysterious though. Not mentioning the mystery
| would be click-repellent.
| antishatter wrote:
| If clickbait gets people reading science why do we care?
| dekhn wrote:
| I'll tell you why. I read clickbait about molecular biology
| when I was a teenager (quite some time ago) and ended up
| thinking that biology was far more advanced than it really
| is. it took me decades of training to understand that
| publicly, scientists are more optimistic and likely to
| overstate the quality and applicability to their results. It
| would have helped me a lot if the original articles about
| gene therapy had said "this is a very risky technology and
| it's likely it will never be approved because people are
| terrified of side effects"
| oneoff786 wrote:
| It took you decades of training to understand that?
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes. I'm a slow learner, and basically the entire
| training system makes it hard to recognize just how
| juiced biology scientific communications are. There are
| legitimate subfields, and journals that aren't as bad as
| Nature. I mean if you want to be a successful scientist
| you have to practice some level of reality distortion to
| make progress.
|
| I also didn't expect nearly all gene therapy would be
| stopped for over a decade due to a single patient dying
| in a trial in 1999:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger That sort
| of educated me ot the fact that people take some medical
| risks really seriously (OH GOD EGGS HAVE CHOLESTEROL) and
| others they completely ignore/downweight (like Flu).
| louissan wrote:
| Yes the World needs more clickbait that takes to actual
| learning resources, not people-ish articles, property porn
| and other horrors.
|
| "Is this is the best XXX algorithm in the world?" "I have
| tried XXX low-level programming language and it's amazing!"
| "We went to the Science Museum and met XXX" "Top tips to
| enjoy working late at night on subject XXX and YYY" "Why STEM
| studies makes you look more sexy than XXX" "15 ways to look
| good while loving maths & physics" "You won't believe why the
| Riemann hypothesis was right!" "The 6 thing to do when banish
| Economics teacher fatigue" "Can't focus on XXX? Try this, it
| works!"
|
| etc, etc, etc.
| sgustard wrote:
| The astronomers quoted in the article used the words "spooky",
| "unexpected" and "peculiar". It's not like the headline writer
| went completely off the rails.
| sandebert wrote:
| The astronomers used the word "spooky", so I propose the
| headline below, for maximum correctness and confusion:
|
| Spooky action at a distance
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not that they've seen it before, it's that they haven't
| heard it like this before. It's almost like someone put the
| star on 33 1/3 instead of the 78rpm it's meant to be played.
| robofanatic wrote:
| still it's a good read.
| tzs wrote:
| The original is better than your proposed rewrite.
|
| "Mysterious" does convey useful information. Something can be
| new but not mysterious.
|
| "Celestial", on the other hand, conveys almost no useful
| information because generally every object astronomers look at
| is celestial.
| postalrat wrote:
| Because "Celestial object unlike anything astronomers have seen
| before" might be happening every day.
| kk6mrp wrote:
| "Astronomers puzzled by enigma in the sky"
| dylan604 wrote:
| Astronomers puzzled by object wrapped in mystery inside an
| enigma in the sky
| ck2 wrote:
| If a civilization was exponentially more advanced yet still
| didn't have FTL travel (or FTL communication) might they harness
| such a galaxy-level radio signal as a beacon?
|
| All you'd have to do at that point is figure out how to make it
| blink in a pattern by intermittently blocking it
|
| Might take centuries for others to receive but it could be a
| historical record.
| dylan604 wrote:
| More realistically, wouldn't they be better used as locating
| beacons? Find the magnetar with a frequency of 18mins18s, then
| turn left and go just a few light years until you reach
| Sagitarius A*. you can't miss it!
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