A few years ago, scientists discovered an unusual astronomical phenomenon: Objects that sent short bursts of radio waves at distinct intervals, emanating from various parts of space.
Scientists named them “long-period radio transients.” They didn’t know much about them, but they knew what the objects were not. They were not quasars. They were not pulsars. They were a mystery, but thanks to David Kaplan and an international cohort of astronomers, the world is finally getting a glimpse of what is producing these puzzling energy bursts.
Kaplan, professor of physics and astrophysics at UWM, is one of the authors of a paper published in the prestigious journal Nature Astronomy in June. In it, he and his colleagues detailed the search for the identity of a particular long-period transient they had observed emanating from a point in the Milky Way Galaxy about 3,000 light-years away from Earth.
Learn more about this astrological phenomenon in this story by Sarah Vickery on the website of UWM’s College of Letters & Science.
