SCIENTISTS have detected repeated signals from a galaxy that is 12 million light-years away from ours.
The mysterious series of bright flashes are in the galaxy M81 and were first spotted in January 2020.
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These flashes are known as a repeating fast radio burst, or FRB.
They are similar to flashes found in the Crab Nebula, a famous residue of an old stellar implosion, or Supernova.
Humans observed this explosion in July 1054 AD, and it was recorded by several different cultures.
Experts say the colorful remnants seen in the galaxy M81 are similar to those of the Crab Nebula.
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“Some of the signals we measured are short and extremely powerful, in just the same way as some signals from the Crab pulsar,” said Ph.D. student Kenzie Nimmo.
Back in 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers reported seeing a new or “guest” star above the southern horn of Taurus, according to Space.com.
The guest star reportedly shone brightly in the sky for 23 days and was six times brighter than Venus.
It was still visible nearly two years after the explosion, and was also documented by Arab and Japanese astronomers.
Since the remnant was best visible through a telescope, the remaining nebula was only spotted for the first time in 1731 by British astronomer John Bevis.
Nearly 30 years later French astronomer Charles Messier also observed it and added it to his now-famous catalog of Messier objects.
Messier named the nebula as Messier 1 or M1.
In the 1960s astronomers discovered the signal came from a pulsar, a kind of neutron star with a strong magnetic field.
However, despite the similarities with M1, astronomers are not sure what’s going on with M81.
While FRBs have mostly been spotted in galaxies with young stars, the M81 sightings come from an old group of stars known as a globular cluster, according to a dozen radio dishes.
One way to explain FRBs is they come from magnetars, the strongest magnets in the universe and a different kind of supernova remain.
But this explanation doesn’t quite fit M81.
“We expect magnetars to be shiny and new, and definitely not surrounded by old stars,” said expert Jason Hessels. “If what we’re looking at here really is a magnetar, then it can’t have been formed from a young star exploding. There has to be another way.”
Another explanation could be that a white dwarf, the cooling core of a large burnt-out star, pulled gas from a neighboring star.
Whatever the explanation, scientists agree that what is going on in M81 is unusual.
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