Mysterious radio pulsar beats every 36 minutes ✎ express

Original: "Discovery of a 36-minute long-period transient ASKAP J142431.2-612611"

· Joshua Pritchard, Tara Murphy, Dougal Dobie, Emil Lenc, Akash Anumarlapudi, Manisha Caleb, Sophia Grainger, Natasha Hurley-Walker, David L. Kaplan, Samuel J. McSweeney, Jackson Mitchell-Bolton, Kovi Rose, Rahul Sengar, Ziteng Wang, Jayde Willingham, Andrew Zic

arXiv:2603.07857 · 2026-03-09 · arXiv non-exclusive · independent analysis · 1 min

High Energy

Astronomers detected a cosmic radio beacon that signaled every 36 minutes — but only for eight days.

Astronomers caught a signal from a cosmic lighthouse — a radio pulsar with a period of 36 minutes. Unlike ordinary pulsars (neutron stars that spin hundreds of times per second), this one barely turned. It transmitted pulses for only eight days and vanished, visible only in the radio range.

The signal resembled a beacon with a rotating polarizing filter: the polarization plane slowly turned, completing a full circle.

The radio waves turned out to be 100% polarized — such orderliness is rare in nature. Their plane of oscillation rotated smoothly, tracing a circle on the Poincaré sphere. Apparently, the radiation is born strictly directed, and the object's magnetic field twists it further.

This source could be a neutron star with an extreme magnetic field or even a white dwarf radio pulsar. The brevity of the flash hints that such beacons are numerous in the Galaxy, but we only notice them when they briefly turn on.

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A 36-minute period is so vast that an ordinary pulsar would need longer than the age of the Universe to slow down that much.

Scientists

Michael Faraday Hendrik Lorentz Albert Einstein Barry Barish Kip Thorne Richard Feynman

Concepts

askap solar cycle meerkat rotating radio transient

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Mysterious radio pulsar beats every 36 minutes ✎ express