2023-08-07 10:45:44
Updated Monday, August 7, 2023 – 10:45
A team of researchers relates these signals to the magntar GPM J1839-10, even acknowledging that until now it was not believed possible that with its characteristics it could emit them.
Artist’s impression of a magnetarICRAScience A new detection of a fast radio burst adds to the mystery of these cosmic signals
An international team led by astronomers from Curtin University of the International Center for the Investigation of Radio Astronomy (ICRAR) has discovered a new type of stellar object that challenges what was known even about the physics of neutron stars.
May be an ultralong-period magntara rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy.
Until recently, all known magnetars released energy at intervals ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes. The newly discovered object emits radio waves every 22 minutes, making it the longest-lived magnetar ever detected, according to the statement released by ICRAR, a synthesis of the article published in Nature.
“This remarkable object challenges our understanding of neutron stars and magnetars, which are some of the most exotic and extreme objects in the universe,” said the study’s lead author, Natasha Hurley-Walker. Site this magntar, called GPM J183910, at 15,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation Scutum. It is only the second of its kind detected.
FRB waves
The radio waves that astronomers detected are called fast radio burst (FRB). Among them are those issued by this magntar GPM J1839-10.
The astronomers discovered it using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a radio telescope located in the outback of Western Australia. But by studying the records at the Very Large Array, another radio telescope in New Mexico that has the longest-lived data archive, the researchers found that The pulse from this source was first observed in 1988, so it would have gone unnoticed for more than three decades.
“It was a pretty incredible moment for me. I was five years old when our telescopes first recorded pulses from this object, but no one noticed it and it stayed hidden in the data for 33 years. They missed it because they didn’t expect to find something like this,” he says. Natasha Hurley-Walker.
An “extraordinary” emisin
The striking thing is that not all magnetars produce radio waves. Is there un critical threshold below which a star’s magnetic field becomes too weak to generate emissions high energy.
“The object that we have discovered is below that threshold,” said researcher Dr. Hurley-Walker. “Assuming it’s a magnetar, it shouldn’t be possible for it to produce radio waves. But we’re seeing them, and we’re not just talking about a little flicker,” he explains.
“Every 22 minutes, it emits a five-minute pulse of radio-wavelength energy, and it has been doing so for at least 33 years,” details Natasha Hurley-Walker. “Any mechanism behind this is extraordinary,” he concludes, as stated in the ICRAR statement:
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