Astrophysicists at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research at Curtin University in Australia have spotted an unknown object at a Milky Way spot that emits steady bursts of radio waves every 18.8 minutes. At first they thought it was a neutron star or a white dwarf with a strong magnetic field.
The object appeared and disappeared during our many hours of observation. We did not expect that. It was a little scary for an astronomer because there is nothing known in the universe to do that. And it is very close to us, about 4.000 light years away. It's in our galactic neighborhood. - Natasha Hurley-Walker
The mysterious object sends a beam of radiation that passes through our field of vision and for one minute every twenty minutes, is one of the brightest sources of radio waves in the sky.
Transient sources of radiation are not unknown to astronomers. Slow emissions are usually attributed to supernovae, appearing within days and disappearing after months. Fast emissions are caused by neutron stars and flash within seconds or milliseconds. The transience of this object in minutes has aroused the curiosity of astrophysicists as they have not encountered it again.
The object is extremely bright and smaller than the Sun, emitting ionizing radio waves, which shows that it has an extremely strong magnetic field.
The hypothesis is that it is a magnet with an extremely long period, a type of neutron star that we have never seen but have been predicted to exist in theory.
No one expected us to notice one directly, because we did not expect it to be so bright. It somehow converts magnetic energy into radio waves much more efficiently than we have ever seen.
Source: unboxholics