SCIENTISTS have discovered a very bright stellar object that’s defying logic.
They think it’s a new type of magnetar, which is a collapsed core of a supergiant star with an extremely powerful magnetic field.
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The object in question is located about 15,000 light-years from Earth.
It’s not behaving how a magnetar usually does.
The object is rotating and emitting pulses as is to be expected but these activities are not slowing down.
Usually, a magnetar stops rotating after a few months when it reaches something called the “death line”.
According to Live Science, the death line is a threshold that is met when the collapsed star core can no longer produce any high-energy radiation.
It’s thought the newly discovered magnetar has defied this threshold for around 30 years.
A team of researchers has published its findings about the object in the journal Nature.
Lead study author and astronomer Natasha Hurley-Walker explained what it was like to first see the object in a statement.
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She said: “We were stumped. So we started searching for similar objects to find out if it was an isolated event or just the tip of the iceberg.”
Adding: “The object we’ve discovered is spinning way too slowly to produce radio waves—it’s below the death line.
“Assuming it’s a magnetar, it shouldn’t be possible for this object to produce radio waves. But we’re seeing them.
“And we’re not just talking about a little blip of radio emission.
“Every 22 minutes, it emits a five-minute pulse of radio wavelength energy, and it’s been doing that for at least 33 years.”
The astronomer says whatever the object is and whatever is powering it is “extraordinary.”
