Pulsars usually "pulse" very rapidly and in very short bursts[0]. This one pulses only once every 18 minutes, but in bursts that seem to last for a minute. Some articles mention the possibility of a star-quake which as I _think_ could be caused by either further decay of the magnetar, or the magnetar absorbing more mass

[0] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/r....

Then it's a slow pulsar LOL Sorry, I had to make it :)

Article says it's a theoretically possible object described as "slow magnetar".

Is that really that mysterious? Just seems they went out of their way for clickbaity title.

The mysterious (unpredicted/as yet unexplained) aspect is the precise physics of its emission properties. It's a refinement of known physics sure, but that doesn't make it less interesting. Not unlike how finally completing a full physics accounting for how bicycles remain upright would be fascinating even if positively pedestrian.

That's correct. The original paper doesn't call it mysterious, just "unusual". Science PR people are under a lot of stress to get pageviews.

The original description was most likely “hmmm… that’s funny”.