Research lead Dr Manisha Caleb, formerly from the University of Manchester and now at the University of Sydney, said: “Amazingly we only detect radio emission from this source for 0.5 percent of its rotation period.

“This means that it is very lucky that the radio beam intersected with the Earth.

“It is therefore likely that there are many more of these very slowly spinning stars in the Galaxy, which has important implications for understanding how neutron stars are born and age.

“The majority of pulsar surveys do not search for periods this long, so we have no idea how many of these stars might exist.”

The newly discovered neutron star is named PSR J0901-4046 and seems to have at least seven different pulse types, some of which occur at regular intervals. It shows characteristics of pulsars, ultra-long period magnetars and even fast radio bursts –brief flashes of radio emission in random locations in the sky.

"This is the beginning of a new class of neutron stars. How or whether it relates to other classes is yet to be explored. There are likely many more out there. We need only look!” Dr Caleb said.

Research collaborators include the 77-person ThunderKAT team, co-led by the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford.