Science Release

Just wanted to throw this out there for everyone to make thier own determination about what this might be. Strobing lights for 3 days sounds like something we are waiting for.

Astronomers have discovered a most bizarre celestial object that emitted 40 visible-light flashes before disappearing again. It is most likely to be a missing link in the family of neutron stars, the first case of an object with an amazingly powerful magnetic field that showed some brief, strong visible-light activity.

After the initial gamma-ray pulse, there was a three-day period of activity during which 40 visible-light flares were observed, followed by a brief near-infrared flaring episode 11 days later, which was recorded by ESO's Very Large Telescope. Then the source became dormant again.

"We are dealing with an object that has been hibernating for decades before entering a brief period of activity", explains Alberto J. Castro-Tirado, lead author of a paper in this week's issue of Nature.

Here is the link to the official press release, with a photo of it.

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/pr-31-08.html