{"id":3562,"date":"2022-01-31T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=3562"},"modified":"2022-01-17T07:58:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T07:58:09","slug":"an-oddball-neutron-star-just-spit-out-a-huge-amount-of-energy-even-by-sun-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/an-oddball-neutron-star-just-spit-out-a-huge-amount-of-energy-even-by-sun-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"An Oddball Neutron Star Just Spit Out a Huge Amount of Energy\u2014Even by Sun Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s no surprise that the stars in the sky are regulars when it comes to spitting out energy\u2014and it certainly appears to be the case when you check out events like a recently-observed massive solar storm<\/a> and the fast-spinning \u201cPropeller Star\u201d white dwarf<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s definitely a surprise involved, however, with a particular star in the sky locked in the Sculptor Galaxy, located some 13 million light-years from Earth. It\u2019s not your everyday star like our own Sun, however; this one\u2019s called a magnetar<\/em>, and it managed to spit out so much energy that the Sun would need some 100,000 years to match its split-second output. The results of this astounding observation were published in the journal Nature<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An artist\u2019s imagining of the surface of a magnetar above is complete with the X-ray burst resulting from a hypothesized \u201cstarquake.\u201d (NASA\/CXC\/Huntingdon Inst. for X-ray Astronomy\/Garmire\/ESO\/VLT, 2013) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Magnetars are rapidly-spinning neutron stars, which are basically stars that didn\u2019t collapse into black holes<\/a>, that possess exceptionally strong magnetic fields. They thus possess both the ultramassive qualities of a \u201cstandard\u201d neutron star and the high-energy electromagnetic bursts given by the decay of its magnetic field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These magnetars are among the most bizarre objects in the universe, with scientists constantly on the lookout for them to give us a better understanding of these unique kinds of stars at the ends of their life cycles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The magnetar at the center of this artist\u2019s imagining sees it nestled within the supernova it came out of, all while spewing out gamma-ray bursts. (ESO, 2015) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the magnetars within the Sculptor Galaxy, however, decided to make a statement, and just sent out a flare with enough energy to match our Sun\u2019s total output for 100 millennia\u2014and it all went out at just 1\/10ths of a second, according to LiveScience<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even in an inactive state, magnetars can be 100,000 times more luminous than our sun […] [but] in the case of the flash that we have studied \u2014 GRB2001415 \u2014 the energy that was released is equivalent to that which our sun radiates in 100,000 years,\u201d said lead author and Spanish Research Council Institute for Astrophysics of Andalucia research professor Alberto Castro-Tirado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2013, scientists discovered a magnetar, labeled SGR 1745-2900, that sits just some 0.3 light-years away from Sagittarius A\u201d, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. (NASA\/CXC\/INAF\/Zelati et al, 2014) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Study co-author Victor Reglero calls the recently-observed magnetar GRB2001415 a \u201ctrue cosmic monster,\u201d in part due to its huge amount of energy output. The energetic flare itself was detected on the 15th of April in 2020 back at the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), an instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire event, which lasted just some 0.16 seconds, was recorded in only some two seconds of data; however, this seemingly short duration of data gathering needed to be analyzed for more than a year before the research team revealed their results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magnetar GRB2001415 joins the roughly 30 known magnetars, which themselves are part of the 3,000-strong list of neutron stars found across the sky. Scientists suspect that the energetic flare was the result of a so-called \u201cstarquake,\u201d which is said to disrupt the \u201celastic\u201d outer layers of magnetars and lead them to emit such high amounts of energy in such short periods of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n