New ‘mysterious objects’ behaving unlike anything else astronomers have ever seen have been detected in space for the first time.
Astronomers observed the objects giving off unusually low-energy X-rays but intense levels of ultraviolet radiation.
The researchers found a total of 84 of these ‘hypersoft X-ray sources’ – named because of the low-energy X-rays they emit – in six different galaxies.
They used data openly available to the public in the Chandra archive, an archive of all X-ray data collected by NASA’s Chandra observatory.
They suggest these newly spotted objects in other galaxies may help solve not one, but two long-standing questions in astrophysics.
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The first is what stars eventually become: Type Ia supernovae.
The second is what causes the stripping of electrons from gas between stars in some galaxies.
Mustafa Muhibullah of the University of Alabama, who led the study, said: ‘We’ve never encountered a group of objects that act like this. Of course, the next step was to try to figure out what these things are.
‘These clandestine X-ray sources are actually among the most energetic objects in galaxies, and they could be solving two cosmic mysteries at once.’
Scientists think that some white dwarf systems pulling material from companion stars may eventually explode as a supernova — known as a Type Ia — that is critical for measuring the expansion of the universe.
These supernovae played a key role in discovering that this expansion is accelerating. Astronomers have been looking for the stars that turn into Type Ia supernovae for many years, so far without success.
Study co-author Jimmy Irwin, also of the University of Alabama, said: ‘If we could find a way to spot these Type Ia supernova explosions before they go off, that would be really important.
‘Right now, we study them after they’ve exploded, and astronomers have struggled to understand what is actually ignited.’
The other mystery these hypersoft X-ray sources might explain is what strips electrons from gas between the stars in some galaxies.
This stripping of electrons is important to probe because it can affect how quickly stars form and influence the life cycles of galaxies.
Hot, massive stars play a role, but they do not completely explain what is causing this stripping. The intense levels of ultraviolet radiation from the hypersoft X-ray sources may play a vital role.
Researchers said further observations are now planned to pinpoint the nature of the objects and test their role in shaping galaxies.
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