Scientists have noticed signs that one of the rarest stars known to science has begun to «wake up».

It has name the XTE J1810-197 and is a member of the exclusive club of strange neutron stars. These stars are called magnetars. Such objects in our Galaxy to date opened quite a bit. And only one found outside.

Magnetars are incredibly weird objects! In fact, they are “dead” stars. And they, for reasons that science does not fully understand, have insanely powerful magnetic fields.

Just imagine. These incredibly dense stars can generate magnetic fields that are about 1 quadrillion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field!

It’s just a paranormal mystery!

Currently, science is aware of the existence of 23 magnetars. But the XTE J1810–197 is something very special. While all other magnetars emit mainly in the gamma range, the XTE J1810–197 and three other similar objects emit radio waves.

But at the end of 2008, the radio waves emitted by the XTE J1810-197 suddenly stopped registering on Earth. There was silence.

And it lasted more than 10 years!

But on December 8, 2018, researchers from the Max Planck University of Manchester and the Institute of radio astronomy again began to receive signals from the XTE J1810-197 in the radio band. Interestingly, the profile of the rhythm of the radio waves received now has quite large differences with the one that was first recorded many years ago.

How can we explain such a strange behavior of the XTE J1810-197? The thing is, we still know very little about magnetars. It is believed that they are formed as well as a normal neutron star. It all starts with the collapse of the core of a massive dying star.

During this process, the atoms are so strongly compressed that their nuclei are literally pressed against each other.

At some point, this compact body begins to generate a magnetic field with a density of up to 10 ^ 15 Gauss (10 ^ 11 Tesla), which is phenomenal. What exactly is the cause of such powerful magnetism is a big mystery. Most theories suggest that this is due to the fact that the neutron star rotates at a speed of hundreds to thousands of times per second.

There is another fact about the XTE J1810-197. In 2003, he briefly radiated strongly in the X-ray range. But astronomers noticed that in doing so, he emitted pulses of much longer radio waves. Observations showed that the Magnetar emitted low-energy electromagnetic radiation once

This particular class of stars blurs the boundaries between magnetic monsters and pulsars of different varieties. The latter have weaker magnetic fields. The radio waves, which they penetrate space, arise in the process of their own rotation. But these radio waves come to Earth with a certain periodicity, because their magnetic field is inclined to the axis of rotation.

In addition, scientists believe that the instability of the stellar crust, consisting of densely packed neutrons, is not only able to rebuild a powerful magnetic field. But also directly responsible for the range of emitted electromagnetic frequencies, including radio waves.

As a result, the question arises that someone controls this space monster, or the magnetic field itself has a Mind? As it has a magnetic field of the human heart.

3 thoughts on “He’s alive! Magnetar woke up.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *