When astronomers look out into space, they know much of what they are going to see. One of the most predictable things out there is the steady pulse of dead stars spinning (which is where they get the name pulsars).

These pulsars emit steady flashes of light that can be tracked and measured to be extremely precise. Many suggest that these could even be used to keep time on an atomic level.

Occasionally, however, the pulsars miss a beat. It is not common, nor has it been predictable so far, but there is something out there that causes the normally highly regular pulsars to have a delay of less than a microsecond.

John LoSecco from the University of Notre Dame has recently reported that he believes the delay may be caused by massive objects floating through the universe. When they come between the Earth and the pulsar in question, there is a delay.

What that massive object is (if it exists at all) is up for debate.

He had an interview with IFLScience where he said:

“I have been warned not to call them planets, not to call them dark matter, just call them mass concentrations because, just by looking in the radio, you can’t determine what they are. They could be a brown dwarf [star] or some sort of a white dwarf or something else.”

The professor and his team have been documenting these cases to gather additional evidence that will hopefully be able to identify exactly what they are.

He commented on their efforts:

“There were 12 candidates and they come from eight independent pulsars.”

The professor also explained a little bit of how they gather the information that they are using in a press release:

“We take advantage of the fact that the Earth is moving, the Sun is moving, the pulsar is moving, and even the dark matter is moving. We observe the deviations in the arrival time caused by the change in distance between the mass we are observing and the line of sight to our ‘clock’ pulsar.”

As is always the case, additional research is going to be needed in order to formulate firm theories of what the object could be. For now, they continue to work on confirming their suspicions that it is indeed an object of some sort that is causing the unexpected delay in pulsars.

When you look out into the universe, you never know what you will see.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a second giant hole has opened up on the sun’s surface. Here’s what it means.