The BBC reported tonight that an astronomer has spotted a strange pulsar never seen before. She says it is emitting a huge burst of energy three times an hour like clockwork, something that is impossible. Alien spacecraft?????

Its cool a new pulsar has been discovered.
But, emitting a huge burst of energy like clockwork is what pulsars do. Its why they are called pulsars. Three times an hour is pretty slow for a pulsar.

I wonder if it is a threat to our solar system.
Pulsars emmit gamma ray bursts. If it is new (just became a pulsar) and close enough to us it could increase the cosmic radiation in our solar system.

The Earth is still protected by its electromagnetic field but it could increase the danger to astronauts who venture out on deeper space missions like going to the Moon or Mars.

If I get time and remember to look, I will read up on it...I find this stuff interesting.
Thanx

Yeah, three times an hour is extremely slow for a pulsar pulse. They are usually in the millisecond frequencies. And this was described as large bursts of energy not radio waves. The BBC radio report was very short. So it didn't go into details.

Maybe it is the Mother ship.
Send in the clowns..

And stock up on tin-foil.

interesting

I'd wager this pulsar is part of a binary, with a smaller counterpart that's still active and orbiting the pulsar elliptically every 3 hours.

Pulsar's spin superfast, there's no way the pulsar alone is bursting that slowly.