Astronomers spot the quickest spinning magnetar ever seen

Far-off within the Milky Method galaxy, 21,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have noticed the fastest-spinning magnetar (and probably youngest, too) ever seen. And that is simply the beginning of what makes this star unusual.

Magnetars are a novel sort of neutron stars, that are the collapsed cores of supergiant stars that died in supernova occasions. What units magnetars aside from different neutron stars is that they possess extraordinarily highly effective magnetic fields — he strongest ones within the identified universe, the truth is. They’ll additionally explode with out warning and are pretty tough to identify. In reality, earlier than this object was found, there have been solely 30 identified magnetars, in comparison with the hundreds (roughly 3,000) identified neutron stars.

Now, scientists finding out the skies with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory — an area telescope that appears out at black holes, supernovas and extra — assume {that a} newly found magnetar generally known as J1818.0-1607 could possibly be the fastest-spinning and probably additionally the youngest magnetar identified, in accordance with a press release. In addition they discovered a myriad of different odd issues that make this object actually distinctive.

Gallery: Wonderful Photographs by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Astronomers first noticed this magnetar on March 12, 2020 with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Telescope. In a while, Harsha Blumer, an astronomer at West Virginia College, and Samar Safi-Harb, a physics professor on the College of Manitoba in Canada, noticed the magnetar utilizing Chandra, and so they seen a few peculiar issues that made the magnetar stand out.

One of many first issues that appeared intriguing about this explicit object was how younger it appeared. The workforce estimated that the magnetar is about 500 years previous, which, if true, would make it the youngest found but. They decided the item’s age by measuring how rapidly the rotation price of the magnetar is slowing down (it spins slower over time) whereas assuming that the item began out spinning a lot quicker.

The second factor that actually stood out to the workforce was simply how briskly the item was spinning, because it appeared to be rotating as soon as totally each 1.four seconds (which is admittedly, actually quick).

Different astronomers have taken a take a look at J1818.0-1607 as nicely, observing the magnetar utilizing radio telescopes just like the Nationwide Science Basis’s Karl Jansky Very Giant Array (VLA) and have discovered that it is emitting radio waves, a high quality it shares with objects generally known as “rotation powered pulsars.” These are a kind of neutron star that emits radiation that we on Earth detect as “pulses” of radio wave emissions.

Blumer and Safi-Harb additionally discovered that the magnetar is not changing spinning power from its rotations into X-ray emissions as effectively as anticipated for a magnetar. In reality, the item is changing this power at a price commonest with rotation-powered pulsars, one other attention-grabbing commonality between the 2 objects.

The final odd factor that the pair of researchers discovered about this younger, quick star was that, whereas most magnetars round this age would have left behind a particles area of fabric leftover from the supernova that created the item, the researchers solely discovered attainable proof of a supernova remnant with J1818.0-1607, and this particles was fairly removed from the item.

By their estimations, to ensure that the particles area to have traveled that distant from the magnetar, the item would’ve wanted to have traveled at speeds quicker than ever seen with a neutron star.

This work was accepted for publication within the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Electronic mail Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@house.com or comply with her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Fb.