NASA astronomers have discovered the brightest dead star that pulsates with such enormous energy it could be mistaken for a black hole.

Using NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), astronomers and scientists detected an object in deep space that emits energy beams equivalent to the power of 10 million suns.

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Called a pulsar, this exceedingly bright object is incredibly dense since it's made from remnants of a dead star that has begun to rotate rapidly.

According to Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR investigator and physics professor from Caltech, this stellar remnant is so dense, astronomers first thought it was a black hole. The average size of pulsars is about twice the size of the sun but this newly discovered space oddity of a pulsar is 100 times brighter than what regular pulsars are supposed to be.

Astronomers are also observing a similar bright object detected earlier this year believed to be a supernova located in a galaxy called M82.

According to Matteo Bachetti from the University of Toulouse in France and lead author of the study, their team was looking for bright X-ray energy sources called ULXs in galaxy M82 when they found an object emitting intense light.

Harrison adds this was a huge surprise for the team because it was been previously thought objects that exude ultraluminous X-rays are always presumed to be black holes. On the contrary, black holes don't work that way and have that kind of pulsing energy.

Pulsars are challenging to detect since they act like colossal rotating magnets giving-off radioactive beams from their magnetic poles. Their rapid rotating motion emits powerful, intense beams of bright light across deep space.

In an attempt to pinpoint the exact source of these radioactive streams of energy, researchers observed some 25 X-ray sources from M82 and determined it was from a ULX called M82X-2 where the pulsar is actually located.

This pulsar violated the Eddington limit by seven times. Eddington is a measurement used by astronomers to determine the brightness of an object proportional to its mass.

This pulsar discovery was published in the journal, Nature.

TagsNASA's NuSTAR Detects Ultra Luminous Dead Star with an Energy of 10 Million Suns, pulsars, supernovas, NASA, NASA NuSTAR telescope, NASA NuSTAR brightest dead star