A space anomaly blinks slowly at Earth

Magnetar. An artist’s impression of what the object might look like if it’s a magnetar. Magnetars are incredibly magnetic neutron stars, some of which sometimes produce radio emission. Known magnetars rotate every few seconds, but theoretically, “ultra-long period magnetars” could rotate much more slowly. Photo courtesy of The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)

Astronomers believe they may have discovered an "'ultra-long period magnetar," a hypothetical type of neutron star that rotates remarkably slowly due to the way it interacts with surrounding ionized gas — yet scientists caution that more observational data is needed to better confirm this so-called "spooky" unknown object that is not that far away (galactically speaking) from Earth.

The object belongs to a caste of astronomical events called "transients," which are by nature short-lived and in flux. When astronomers are observing transients in the universe, they are generally observing the unusual activity of a massive star, or the behavior of the remnants that star has left behind. Pulsars, which sometimes emit a bright flash over a period of second or milliseconds, are known as fast transients. Slow transients, such as a supernovae, become extremely luminous over days or months. And then there are ​​fast-radio bursts, or FRBs for short, which are very brief yet incredibly powerful bursts of radio wave energy that appear to be coming from all corners of the universe, yet whose origins are still ill-understood.