This one just goes to show how little we know of our universe. Recently, astronomers discovered a mysterious site: supernova RCW103, which is 10,000 light years away from Earth and contains a stellar object the likes of which astronomers have never seen before in our galaxy.

This object could be found at the heart of the supernova. At first sight, they dismiss it as a neutron star surrounded by a bubble of ejected stellar material, exactly what would be expected in the wake of a supernova explosion.

Upon closer look though, thanks to the European Space Agency's XMM Newton X-ray satellite, the very giddy X-ray emissions of the blue, point like mystery object cycles every 6.7 hours — thousands of times longer than expected for a freshly created neutron star. The object, now tagged as 1E161348-5055 and nicknamed 1E, is smacked right at the center of the supernova. Astronomers are now hypothesizing that 1E and RCW103 were both born in the same catastrophic event.

The team who have been studying this oddity isn't crossing out the possibility that the object may indeed be a neutron star after all. Apparently, one explanation for a neutron star's strange behavior is that it might be a magnetar, an exotic subclass of highly magnetized neutron stars. Of the magnetars that are known and documented, most usually spin several times per minute—much faster than 1E. But if the magnetar is surrounded by a debris disk, then that could be helping to slow down the neutron star's spin.

Another hypothesis that entered the picture is the possibility that 1E is a part of a binary system with a normal, low-mass star with only half the mass of our Sun. Binary systems such as those have been documented, but they usually involve systems that are millions of times older than 1E.

One thing is for sure though, the research team still do not have a scientific explanation about 1E's existence and its behavior. But surely, if they ever figure this one out, then this may lead to more information about supernovae, neutron stars and their evolution.