A team of astronomers discovered "Something unusual" while mapping out the universe - a mysterious object sending bursts of energy every 20 minutes.
The object is around 4,000 light-years away, and although that may seem far, its energy bursts were so big that it was one of the largest radio sources in the sky.
"This object was appearing and disappearing over a few hours during our observations," Natasha Hurley-Walker, an astrophysicist from Curtin University in Australia and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
O'Doherty said it was "Exciting" that the discovery turned out to be "Such a peculiar object."
Astronomers have detected objects in space that turn on and off before, as they are typically the death of a massive star or what's left of one.
What makes this object unusual is that it doesn't behave like a transient.
"Somehow it's converting magnetic energy to radio waves much more effectively than anything we've seen before."
Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute who was not involved in the research, compared the unknown object to a lighthouse, in that the flashes of light indicate that it's rotating.
He added there is also no need to panic; it's not "Alien intelligence" trying to reach out to other parts of the universe because it is "Obviously nature."
As of Wednesday, the object has yet to emit another burst of energy, but Hurley-Walker is keeping an eye on it with the Murchison Widefield Array telescope.
"They have some idea what to look for, and that always makes it much quicker to find number two and then number three. At that point, when you found three of them, you can say OK, this is just another animal in the zoo, this is just another astronomical object," he said.
