Distant 'galaxy' isn't a galaxy at all -- but one of the brightest pulsars ever detected

Brandon Specktor 5 hrs ago

A speck of light that scientists once wrote off as a distant galaxy may actually be the brightest pulsar ever detected outside the Milky Way.

Named PSR J0523−7125 and located about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a satellite galaxy that orbits the Milky Way), the newly-defined pulsar is twice as wide as any other pulsar in the region, and 10 times brighter than any known pulsar beyond our galaxy. The object is so big and bright, in fact, that researchers originally interpreted it as a faraway galaxy — however, new research published May 2 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests that this is not the case.

Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in Western Australia, the study authors looked at space through a special pair of "sunglasses" that block all wavelengths of light except for a specific type of emission associated with pulsars, the highly magnetized husks of stars. When PSR J0523−7125 showed up bright and clear in the results, the team realized they weren't looking at a galaxy at all, but at the pulsing corpse of a dead star.

"This was an amazing surprise," lead study author Yuanming Wang, an astrophysicist at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) said in a statement. "I didn't expect to find a new pulsar, let alone the brightest. But with the new telescopes we now have access to, like ASKAP and its sunglasses, it really is possible."

More:
https://www.microsoftnewskids.com/en-us/kids/science-tech/distant-galaxy-isn-t-a-galaxy-at-all-but-one-of-the-brightest-pulsars-ever-detected/ar-AAXdbTB