Astronomers discover mysterious radio signal from ancient star cluster – and there are two possible causes | 8P4SVOS | 2024-01-22 15:08:01
Astronomers discover mysterious radio signal from ancient star cluster – and there are two possible causes | 8P4SVOS | 2024-01-22 15:08:01
It comes from the centre of the second brightest globular cluster in the night time sky – often known as 47 Tucanae.
A PREVIOUSLY undiscovered radio sign has been detected emanating from an historic star cluster.
It comes from the centre of the second brightest globular cluster in the night time sky – often known as 47 Tucanae.
A research staff, led by Curtin College members of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Analysis (ICRAR) in Australia, has additionally produced probably the most sensitive radio picture ever of an historic star cluster.
Astronomer Dr Arash Bahramian says star clusters are an historic relic of the early Universe.
He stated: "Globular clusters are very previous, big balls of stars that we see around the Milky Approach.
"They're extremely dense, with tens of hundreds to tens of millions of stars packed collectively in a sphere.
"Our image is of 47 Tucanae, one of the crucial large globular clusters in the galaxy.
"It has over one million stars and a very brilliant, very dense core."
Dr Bahramian stated the ultra-sensitive image was created from greater than 450 hours of observations on CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA).
It's the deepest, most delicate radio image ever compiled by any Australian radio telescope.
Dr Bahramian stated 47 Tucanae could be seen with the naked eye and was first catalogued in the 1700s.
But he stated imaging it in such nice element allowed astronomers to discover an extremely faint radio signal at the centre of the cluster that had not been detected before.
Lead writer Dr Alessandro Paduano says the detection of the signal was an "exciting" discovery and might be attributed to considered one of two prospects.
Dr Paduano stated: "The first is that 47 Tucanae might include a black gap with a mass someplace between the supermassive black holes found in the centres of galaxies and the stellar black holes created by collapsed stars.
"While intermediate-mass black holes are thought to exist in globular clusters, there hasn't been a transparent detection of one but.
"If this sign seems to be a black hole, it might be a highly vital discovery and the primary ever radio detection of one inside a cluster."
He says the second potential supply of the signal is a pulsar—a rotating neutron star that emits radio waves.
Dr Paduano added: "A pulsar this close to a cluster centre can also be a scientifically fascinating discovery, because it might be used to seek for a central black gap that's but to be detected."
Co-author Dr Tim Galvin, a research scientist with CSIRO, stated: "This undertaking has stretched our software to its limits, when it comes to both knowledge management and processing, and it has been really thrilling to see the wealth of science that these methods have enabled."
He added: "Alessandro's analysis represents a end result of years of analysis and technological advancements, and ATCA's ultra-deep picture of 47 Tucanae represents just the start of the discoveries which are but to return."
Dr Galvin stated the ultra-sensitive picture produced is what researchers can anticipate from the SKA radio telescopes, presently being inbuilt Australia and South Africa by the SKA Observatory (SKAO).
As soon as complete, the SKA telescopes would be the two largest radio telescope arrays on the earth, reworking our understanding of the Universe and tackling a number of the most elementary scientific questions of our time.
The analysis was revealed in The Astrophysical Journal.
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