Mysterious radio pulsar beats every 36 minutes ⚡ экспресс
A new cosmic radio beacon with a period of 36 minutes has been discovered. It sent out signals for only eight days, then went quiet; the source is invisible in other wavelengths. Its emission is almost 100% polarized – as if the radio waves have passed through a cosmic polarizer. Why do such beacons turn on for only a short time, and where do they go afterwards?
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 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.
🎯 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.