magnetar tagged posts

This composite image shows RCW 103 and its central source, known officially as 1E 161348-5055 (1E 1613, for short), in three bands of X-ray light detected by Chandra. In this image, the lowest energy X-rays from Chandra are red, the medium band is green, and the highest energy X-rays are blue. The bright blue X-ray source in the middle of RCW 103 is 1E 1613. The X-ray data have been combined with an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey.

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray observatories, astronomers have found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected...

This artist’s rendering shows a magnetar outburst. A 2011 outburst of Swift J1834.9-0846 led to its discovery by NASA’s Swift satellite. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of high-energy particles called a wind nebula around a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star, or magnetar, for the first time. The find offers a unique window into the properties, environment and outburst history of magnetars, which are the strongest magnets in the universe.

A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. Each one compresses the equivalent mass of half a million Earths into a ball just 12 miles across, or about the length of New York’s Manhattan Island...

Artist impression of a magnetar boosting a super-luminous supernova and gamma-ray burst. Credit: Kavli IPMU

Calculations by scientists have found highly magnetized, rapidly spinning neutron stars called magnetars could explain the energy source behind 2 extremely unusual stellar explosions. Stellar explosions known as supernovae usually shine a billion times brighter than the Sun. Super-luminous supernovae (SLSNe) are a relatively new and rare class of stellar explosions, 10 – 100 times brighter than normal supernovae. But the energy source of their super-luminosity, and explosion mechanisms are a mystery and remain controversial amongst scientists.

A group of researchers tested a model that suggests that the energy to power the luminosity of two recently discovered SLSNe, SN 2011kl and AS...