Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.
Astronomers believe they have found a rare, massive flare that erupted from an extremely magnetic dead star, or magnetar, that was bright enough to illuminate an entire galaxy. If true, the discovery would represent the first time gamma rays from a"recently deceased" neutron star erupting outside the Milky Way have been seen.
To investigate the flare of gamma rays, Mereghetti and colleagues quickly performed follow-up observations of the source of the blast with the XMM-Newton space telescope. They reasoned that, if this blast of gamma rays was a short gamma-ray burst created as the result of a powerful event likeand merging, then there should also be an associated afterglow seen in X-rays and visible light.
With this protection ended, the core of this dying star collapses while the outer layers representing the majority of the star's mass are blasted away in a. The result is a dead stellar core with a mass between one and two times that of sun crammed into a width no greater than 12 miles ., a mere tablespoon of which would weigh 1 billion tons if it were brought to Earth. There are two other extreme consequences of this collapse, too.
"Some young neutron stars have extra strong magnetic fields, more than 10, 000 times that of typical neutron stars. These are called magnetars. They emit energy away in flares, and occasionally these flares are gigantic," European Space Agency research fellow Ashley Chrimes said.) Yet, maybe it is lucky that flaring magnetars are rare. The example seen in Dec. 2004, caused by a magnetar 30,000 light-years from Earth, was so powerful that it actually affected the upper atmosphere of our planet. The effect was similar to that caused byThe Integral discovery represents the first time a flare from a magnetar outside the Milky Way has been spotted.
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