Strange Radio Signal From Galactic Center Has Astronomers Flummoxed - Gizmodo

The signal was discovered using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder Variables and Slow Transients (ASKAP VAST) Survey, a radio telescope based in extremely remote Western Australia.

When the radio source went dark, the team checked the visible light spectrum, finding nothing.

But then, using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, the team at last spotted the object again, but it disappeared within a day.

The radio wave pattern bears similarities to a class of objects called Galactic Centre Radio Transients, though it also has some differences.

Galactic Centre Radio Transients are not one specific object but rather a group of radio-emitting objects around the Milky Way’s center that don’t have a certain identity.

Instead of leapfrogging from radio telescope to radio telescope in the future, the team hopes to use the Square Kilometre Array, the world’s largest radio telescope with 130,000 antennas, for its future observations of distant radio sources.