Latest news with #000lightyears
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Super-magnetic dead star throws a violent temper tantrum as NASA X-ray spacecraft looks on
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Using NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft, astronomers have made detailed observations of a highly magnetic dead star or "magnetar" as it threw a massive tantrum. The observations mark the first time that the polarization of X-rays from a magnetar, neutron stars possessing the most powerful magnetic fields in the known universe, have been measured during an outburst or "activation phase." The erupting magnetar observed by IXPE is known as 1E 1841-045, a neutron star located around 28,000 light-years from Earth in the supernova wreckage known as Kes 73, which shocked astronomers when it burst to life on Aug. 20, 2024. "This is the first time we have been able to observe the polarization of a magnetar in an active state, and this has allowed us to constrain the mechanisms and geometry of emission that lie behind these active states," team leader and National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) researcher Michela Rigoselli said in a statement. "It will now be interesting to observe 1E 1841-045 once it has returned to its quiescent state to monitor the evolution of its polarimetric properties." Like all neutron stars, magnetars begin when the lives of stars with ten times the mass of the sun or greater run out of fuel for nuclear fusion. This ends the production of outward radiation pressure flowing from the cores of these stars that, for millions of years, has supported them against the inward pressure of their own a result of this, the cores of these massive stars crush down at a rapid rate, creating shock waves that ripple into the outer stellar layers of the star, triggering massive supernova explosions that send most of the mass of these stars hurtling into space, creating wreckage fields like Kes 73. What is left behind is the core of the star, crushed down to a width of around 12 miles (20 kilometers) but with a mass between one and two times that of the sun. This leads to material filling the neutron star that is so dense that if a teaspoon of it were brought to Earth, it would weigh 10 million tons, about equal to 85,000 adult blue whales. Another consequence of the collapse of the stellar core that births a neutron star is that the magnetic field lines of that star are squashed together. The closer together the magnetic field lines are, the stronger the magnetic field gets. As a result, neutron stars have the strongest magnetic fields in the known universe. Magnetars take this to the extreme, possessing magnetic fields that are up to 1 trillion times stronger than Earth's magnetosphere. The magnetic environments around these stars are unlike anything found anywhere else in the universe and way beyond anything we could generate on can get hints about these magnetic fields and the environments around magnetars by measuring the organized orientation or "polarization" of light emitted from them. Magnetars and the phenomena around them get even more extreme when they are in an active outburst phase. During these phases, magnetars can release as much as 1,000 times the energy they do when in a quiescent phase. Yet astronomers still aren't clear on the mechanisms that ramp up this energy output. Observations like this one could help change that. Related Stories: — What happens inside neutron stars, the universe's densest known objects? — James Webb Space Telescope finds neutron star mergers forge gold in the cosmos: 'It was thrilling' — The most powerful explosions in the universe could reveal where gold comes from What this team found was that X-rays from 1E 1841-045 become increasingly polarized at higher energy levels. Yet the X-rays kept the same polarization angle throughout this ramping up of energy levels. They reason that this means that the components behind the emissions are somehow connected. Additionally, the highest energy component, which is the most elusive and difficult to study, is strongly influenced by the magnetic field of the team's research was published on Wednesday (May 28) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Asharq Al-Awsat
6 days ago
- General
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Astronomers Discover Strange New Celestial Object in Our Milky Way Galaxy
Astronomers have discovered a strange new object in our Milky Way galaxy. An international team reported Wednesday that this celestial object — perhaps a star, pair of stars or something else entirely — is emitting X-rays around the same time it's shooting out radio waves. What's more, the cycle repeats every 44 minutes, at least during periods of extreme activity. Located 15,000 light-years away in a region of the Milky Way brimming with stars, gas and dust, this object could be a highly magnetized dead star like a neutron or white dwarf, Curtin University's Ziteng Andy Wang said in an email from Australia. Or it could be 'something exotic' and unknown, said Wang, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory spotted the X-ray emissions by chance last year while focusing on a supernova remnant, or the remains of an exploded star. Wang said it was the first time X-rays had been seen coming from a so-called long-period radio transient, a rare object that cycles through radio signals over tens of minutes. Given the uncertain distance, astronomers can't tell if the weird object is associated with the supernova remnant or not. A single light-year is 5.8 trillion miles. The hyperactive phase of this object, designated ASKAP J1832−091, appeared to last about a month. Outside of that period, the star did not emit any noticeable X-rays. That could mean more of these objects may be out there, scientists said. 'While our discovery doesn't yet solve the mystery of what these objects are and may even deepen it, studying them brings us closer to two possibilities,' Wang said. 'Either we are uncovering something entirely new, or we're seeing a known type of object emitting radio and X-ray waves in a way we've never observed before.' Launched in 1999, Chandra orbits tens of thousands of miles (kilometers) above Earth, observing some of the hottest, high-energy objects in the universe.
CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. 'Even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. 'Even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
CNN
6 days ago
- General
- CNN
Astronomers spot bright flashes from a mysterious new class of cosmic object
Astronomers have detected an astonishing celestial object emitting bright flashes of radio waves and X-rays that last for two minutes and repeat every 44 minutes. In a fresh twist, the discovery marks the first time powerful X-rays have been associated with an object that might be a long-period transient. Astronomers first spotted this cryptic new class of objects in 2022, and fewer than a dozen have been found so far. 'Long-period (radio) transients (LPTs) are a recently identified class of cosmic objects that emit bright flashes of radio waves every few minutes to several hours,' said Dr. Andy Wang, an associate lecturer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Australia, in an email. 'What these objects are, and how they generate their unusual signals, remain a mystery.' The object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the same galaxy as our solar system. The X-ray emissions, uncovered by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, could be the key to helping astronomers understand more about the true nature of these intriguing cosmic objects and their pulsing behavior. 'X-rays usually come from extremely hot and energetic environments, so their presence suggests that something dramatic happened to the object,' said Wang, lead author of a study reporting the observations, which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The long-period transients appear to be more energetic than previously believed if they can produce X-rays, which have more energy than radio waves, Wang said. Now, researchers are trying to figure out the source of ASKAP J1832-0911's radio waves and X-rays, which don't fit into a neat box for categorization, and whether it's truly representative of a long-period transient or an eccentric outlier. At first, the team thought the object might be a magnetar, or the dense remnant of a star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, or a pair of stars that includes a highly magnetized dead star called a white dwarf. But neither of those quite matched up with the bright and variable emissions of radio waves and X-rays, the researchers said. 'This object is unlike anything we have seen before,' Wang said. 'Even those theories do not fully explain what we are observing. This discovery could indicate a new type of physics or new models of stellar evolution.' Astronomers traced a previous detection of a long-period transient, announced in March, to a white dwarf that's closely orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star. The two stars orbit each other so closely that their magnetic fields interact, emitting long radio bursts. In that study, researchers detected signals in visible and infrared light that corresponded with the signals they observed, suggesting they could belong to two different types of objects. Wang's team made no such observations of ASKAP J1832-0911, he said. Charlie Kilpatrick, coauthor of the March study, called the new find 'exciting.' He did not participate in the new research. 'The nature of this source bridges the gap between the most extreme magnetars and white dwarfs, which is telling us just how extreme (these) compact objects can be,' wrote Kilpatrick, research assistant professor at Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics in Illinois, in an email. Wang said future X-ray observations may reveal more about the object, such as its temperature and size, which researchers could use to determine the source. But the new detections are already changing the way Wang and his collaborators think about long-period transient signals. Radio astronomers regularly scan the sky using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, or ASKAP, located in Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia and operated by Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO. Wang and his collaborators first picked up on a bright signal from the object in December 2023. Then, the object released extremely bright pulses of radio waves in February 2024. Fewer than 30 known objects in the sky have ever reached such brightness in radio waves, Wang said. By coincidence, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was pointing at something else, but it happened to catch X-ray observations of the 'crazy' bright phase of the long-period transient, Wang said. 'Discovering that ASKAP J1832-0911 was emitting X-rays felt like finding a needle in a haystack,' Wang said. 'The ASKAP radio telescope has a wide field view of the night sky, while Chandra observes only a fraction of it. So, it was fortunate that Chandra observed the same area of the night sky at the same time.' Unlike rapidly spinning neutron stars called pulsars, which release pulses that last milliseconds to seconds, ASKAP J1832-0911 periodically varied in radio wave and X-ray intensity every 44 minutes. The object also dropped off in X-ray and radio wave intensity. Observations taken by Chandra six months later in August 2024 showed no X-rays. The team also used the CRACO, or Coherent Radio Astronomy Core, instrument, which was recently developed to detect mysterious fast radio bursts, or millisecond-long flashes of radio waves, and other celestial phenomena. The instrument can rapidly scan and process data to spot bursts and zero in on their location. 'That's the equivalent of sifting through a whole beach of sand to look for a single five-cent coin every minute,' said Dr. Keith Bannister, a CSIRO astronomer and engineer who helped develop the instrument. But CRACO is also able to detect long radio pulses and helped the team determine that the bursts of radio waves were repeating. Other observations showed that the X-rays were repeating as well. Data from telescopes in the United States, South Africa and India and collaborators from around the world made the extremely rare detection a truly global effort, Wang said. Moving forward, Wang and his team will continue searching for more objects emitting these long radio pulses. 'Finding one such object hints at the existence of many more,' said study coauthor Dr. Nanda Rea, a professor at the Institute of Space Science and The Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia in Spain, in a statement. 'The discovery of its transient X-ray emission opens fresh insights into their mysterious nature.'
