That is an artist’s influence of a magnetar, which is a different form of neutron megastar with a surprisingly robust magnetic box. Neutron stars are one of the vital maximum compact and excessive items within the universe. Those stars in most cases pack greater than the mass of the solar right into a sphere of neutrons about 12 miles throughout. The neutron megastar is depicted as a white-blueish sphere. The magnetic box is proven as filaments streaming out from its polar areas. Credit score: ESA
Researchers the use of NASA’s Hubble House Telescope have came upon the magnetar referred to as SGR 0501+4516 is traversing our galaxy from an unknown hometown. Researchers say that this runaway magnetar is the likeliest candidate in our Milky Manner galaxy for a magnetar that used to be now not born in a supernova explosion as first of all predicted. It’s so unusual it will even be offering clues to the mechanism at the back of occasions referred to as speedy radio bursts.
“Magnetars are neutron stars—the lifeless remnants of stars—composed fully of neutrons. What makes magnetars distinctive is their excessive magnetic fields,” stated Ashley Chrimes, lead writer of the invention paper printed on April 15 within the magazine Astronomy & Astrophysics. Chrimes is a Ecu House Company Analysis Fellow on the Ecu House Analysis and Generation Heart within the Netherlands.
Magnetars have comic-book-hero superpowers. A magnetar has a magnetic box a couple of trillion instances extra robust than Earth’s magnetosphere. If a magnetar flew through Earth at part the moon’s distance, its intense box would wipe out each and every bank card on our planet. If a human were given inside of 600 miles, the magnetar would change into a proverbial sci-fi death-ray, ripping aside each and every atom within the frame.
The magnetar’s strangeness used to be recognized with the assistance of Hubble’s delicate tools in addition to actual benchmarks from ESA’s (Ecu House Company) Gaia spacecraft.
To begin with, the mysterious magnetar used to be came upon in 2008 when NASA’s Swift Observatory noticed transient, intense flashes of gamma rays from the outskirts of the Milky Manner. The supply, which became out to be certainly one of most effective about 30 recognized magnetars within the Milky Manner, used to be dubbed SGR 0501+4516.
As a result of magnetars are neutron stars, the herbal rationalization for his or her formation is that they’re born in supernovae, when a celebrity explodes and will cave in all the way down to an ultra-dense neutron megastar. This seemed to be the case for SGR 0501+4516, which is positioned as regards to a supernova remnant referred to as HB9. The separation between the magnetar and the middle of the supernova remnant at the sky is simply 80 arcminutes, or somewhat wider than your pinky finger when considered on the finish of your outstretched arm.
However a decade-long learn about with Hubble forged doubt at the magnetar’s birthplace. After preliminary observations with ground-based telescopes in a while after SGR 0501+4516’s discovery, researchers used Hubble’s beautiful sensitivity and secure pointing to identify the magnetar’s faint infrared glow in 2010, 2012, and 2020.
Every of those photographs used to be aligned to a reference body outlined through observations from the Gaia spacecraft, which has crafted a very actual 3-dimensional map of just about two billion stars within the Milky Manner. This technique printed the delicate movement of the magnetar because it traversed the sky.
“All of this motion we measure is smaller than a unmarried pixel of a Hubble symbol,” stated co-investigator Joe Lyman of the College of Warwick, United Kingdom. “Having the ability to robustly carry out such measurements in point of fact is a testomony to the long-term steadiness of Hubble.”
Via monitoring the magnetar’s place, the staff used to be ready to measure the article’s obvious movement around the sky. Each the rate and course of SGR 0501+4516’s motion confirmed that the magnetar may now not be related to the within reach supernova remnant. Tracing the magnetar’s trajectory hundreds of years into the previous confirmed that there have been no different supernova remnants or large megastar clusters with which it may well be related.
If SGR 0501+4516 used to be now not born in a supernova, the magnetar will have to both be older than its estimated 20,000-year age, or it will have shaped in otherwise. Magnetars may additionally have the ability to shape in the course of the merger of 2 lower-mass neutron stars or thru a procedure referred to as accretion-induced cave in.
Accretion-induced cave in calls for a binary megastar machine containing a white dwarf: the core of a lifeless sun-like megastar. If the white dwarf pulls in gasoline from its better half, it could possibly develop too large to give a boost to itself, resulting in an explosion—or most likely the introduction of a magnetar.
“Generally, this state of affairs ends up in the ignition of nuclear reactions, and the white dwarf exploding, leaving not anything at the back of. But it surely has been theorized that underneath sure prerequisites, the white dwarf can as an alternative cave in right into a neutron megastar. We predict this could be how SGR 0501 used to be born,” added Andrew Levan of Radboud College within the Netherlands and the College of Warwick in the UK.
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Working out speedy radio bursts
SGR 0501+4516 is lately the most productive candidate for a magnetar in our galaxy that can have shaped thru a merger or accretion-induced cave in. Magnetars that shape thru accretion-induced cave in may explain one of the vital mysterious speedy radio bursts, that are transient however robust flashes of radio waves. Specifically, this state of affairs would possibly provide an explanation for the starting place of speedy radio bursts that emerge from stellar populations too historical to have just lately birthed stars large sufficient to blow up as supernovae.
“Magnetar delivery charges and formation eventualities are some of the maximum urgent questions in high-energy astrophysics, with implications for lots of the universe’s maximum robust brief occasions, akin to gamma-ray bursts, super-luminous supernovae, and speedy radio bursts,” stated Nanda Rea of the Institute of House Sciences in Barcelona, Spain.
The analysis staff has additional Hubble observations deliberate to check the origins of different magnetars within the Milky Manner, serving to to know the way those excessive magnetic items shape.
Additional information:
A. A. Chrimes et al, The infrared counterpart and correct movement of magnetar SGR 0501+4516, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2025). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202453479
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Hubble tracks a roaming magnetar of unknown starting place (2025, April 15)
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