This illustration shows magnetic field lines protruding from a highly magnetic neutron star, or a dense nugget left over after a star goes supernova and explodes. Known as magnetars, these objects generate bright bursts of light that might be powered by their strong magnetic fields (Image: European Space Agency) Photograph:( Others )
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The magnetar Swift J1818.0–1607 is only about 240 years old, a veritable newborn by cosmic standards as per a study published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters
Scientists have discovered a unique star flipping its polarity and blasting its radio wave beam in odd directions around 15,000 light-years away.
Buscan un agujero negro maligno que contiene la energía de 10 000 millones de soles tn.com.ar - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tn.com.ar Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Back in June we brought you news that scientists at NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and several ground-based telescopes had discovered one of these magnetized neutron stars in the constellation Sagittarius, just 16,000 light years away from Earth.
Credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of West Virginia/H. Blumer
Being only 500 years old in Earth time, it was the youngest neutron star ever spotted, and also the youngest magnetar ever found.
The dizzying baby dynamo, spinning 1.4 times per second, projected an intense X-ray burst with a series of long and short radio pulses that astronomers first detected on March 12, 2020. Registered as Swift J1818.0-1607, the infant neutron star generates a magnetic field 70 quadrillion times stronger than that of our own planet, and 1,000 times greater than a typical neutron star.
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Extraordinary Magnetar Discovered Rotating Every 1.4 Seconds
Oh 12, 2020, astronomers detected a new magnetar with NASA s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope. This is only the 31st known magnetar, out of the approximately 3,000 known neutron stars.
After follow-up observations, researchers determined that this object, dubbed J1818.0-1607, was special for other reasons. First, it may be the youngest known magnetar, with an age estimated to be about 500 years old. This is based on how quickly the rotation rate is slowing and the assumption that it was born spinning much faster. Secondly, it also spins faster than any previously discovered magnetar, rotating once around every 1.4 seconds.
When stars more than thirty times bigger than our sun explode, they produce a type of young neutron star called a magnetar –the most magnetic stars in the universe, with gravity a billion times Earth’s and a magnetic field one-quadrillion times stronger than our Sun’s. A blast from magnetar could blow our atmosphere into space, leaving Earth a lifeless rock. Astronomer Phil Plait describes death by a magnetar should you venture too close as “the tides tearing you to pieces, the fierce heat vaporizing you, the magnetic field tearing your atoms apart, or the intense gravity crushing you into a thin paste an atom high.”