A new study proposes that the mysterious ‘Wow! signal’, once thought to be a possible alien broadcast, could be the result of a rare cosmic event involving a magnetar and a hydrogen cloud. This explanation is supported by the discovery of similar signals in archival data from the Arecibo Observatory.
Scientists have discovered a new magnetic star, or magnetar, in the M82 galaxy, approximately 12 million light-years from Earth. This powerful star, which emits violent bursts of energy, is a rapidly moving neutron star resulting from the collapse of a dying star. The discovery was made using the European Space Agency’s telescope and published in the journal Nature. Such stellar explosions are rare, with only three recorded in the past 50 years.
