UWM Physics professor David Kaplan worked with colleagues at the University of Sydney to discover an unusual radio source in the direction of the Galactic Center. Using the ASKAP radio telescope as part of the Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey, they identified a variable, polarized radio source that confounds typical models for such sources (like a pulsar or a flaring star).

Kaplan and colleagues wrote about their experience for the Conversation.

Read the UWM Report story.
Read the CSIRO press release.

The work was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

space weather An irregular radio source has been discovered in the direction of the galactic centre (artist's rendition). Credit: Sebastian Zentilomo/The University of Sydney.