Another potential explanation is that the heartbeat is illuminated by more diffuse and unstructured outflows of gas and particles generated by the disk’s precession. These outflows are not as concentrated and luminous as the jets, but they could potentially ripple out to Fermi J1913+0515 and light it up in this unique way.

The team is in the midst of collecting follow-up observations with the IRAM 30m millimeter radio telescope in Spain that might constrain the origins of the strange gamma ray heartbeat.

“We discovered the source, and discovered its periodicity, but we do not know what it means or how it is produced, so we need more observations to continue the study,” Li said.