UWM Physics professor David Kaplan and PhD student Akash Anumarlapudi worked with colleagues at Curtin University led by Dr. Ziteng (Andy) Wang in Australia and the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey the to discover a mysterious flashing radio source, which for the first time has been seen to flash at X-ray wavelengths too! Using the ASKAP radio telescope, they identified a radio source that flashed for 2 min every 44 min. This made it one of a new class of similar objects, only 10 of which have ever been discovered. But even more exciting was the discovery of X-ray emission using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The source, known as "ASKAP J1832," shows X-ray flashed too, which have never been seen in any of the objects of this type (and not for a lack of looking). The X-ray detection was actually lucky, as Chandra just happened to be looking in the right place at the right time.
This object is a key discovery to help understand this enigmatic class of objects. By linking together X-ray and radio data we can figure out how much energy the source uses and from that help pin down what makes it shine.
Wang and colleagues wrote about their experience for the Conversation.
The work was published in Nature.
An image of the sky showing the region around ASKAP J1832-0911. X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, radio data from the South African MeerKAT radio telescope, and infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Image courtesy of Z. Wang.