Overview

• Astronomers led by Elena Shablovinskaia used ALMA to spot Punctum within 200 light-years of NGC 4945’s central black hole, with two observation epochs showing no short-term variability.
• The source exhibits an estimated 50% linear polarization and millimeter-wave luminosity surpassing typical magnetars by 10,000–100,000 times, microquasars by 100 times, and nearly all supernova remnants by up to 100 times.
• Exhaustive archival searches with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Australia Telescope Compact Array revealed no matching emissions, setting stringent upper limits on its multi-wavelength output.
• The discovery was detailed in a paper posted to arXiv on July 17 and has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, confirming peer-review validation of the analysis.
• Researchers are calling for high-resolution, multi-wavelength follow-up to constrain Punctum’s spectral properties and determine whether it represents a novel class of astrophysical object.