- 3643 - MAGNETARS - how neutron stars are magnetic? - The Insight-HXMT x-ray telescope was used to make a direct measurement of the strongest magnetic field in the known universe. The magnetic field belongs to a “magnetar” currently in the process of cannibalizing an orbiting companion.
--------------------- 3642 - MAGNETARS - how neutron stars are magnetic?
- Magnetars are a special kind of neutron star that powers up the strongest known magnetic fields.
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- While neutron stars are made of almost entirely neutrons, they do contain small populations of protons and electrons. When neutron stars are born in supernova explosions of a massive star, those charged particles can briefly create a strong magnetic field. In normal neutron stars, the magnetic field quickly melts away from all the complex physics happening in the explosion.
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- For some neutron stars, the magnetic field locks itself in before that happens. When the neutron star finally reveals itself, it retains this impressive magnetic strength, and a magnetar is born.
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- But most of the time astronomers have to make due with indirect measurements of magnetar magnetic field strengths. Insight-HXMT observatory was used to study J0243.6+6124, an ultraliminous pulsar in the Milky Way.
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- This pulsar has an orbiting companion that wandered too close. The pulsar’s extreme gravity is currently in the process of tearing apart the companion, forcing its material into a thin accretion disk around the pulsar.
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- Occasionally the gas in the accretion disk flares, producing a flash of incredibly bright x-rays. In the spectrum of those x-rays the astronomers found an absorption line caused by electrons knocking away x-rays.
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- Those electrons can only get that kind of energy if they’re powered by a magnetic field, and so through that observation the astronomers were able to directly measure the magnetic field strengths.
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- They estimated a field strength of 1.6 billion tesla, which is about a million billion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.
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August 5, 2022 MAGNETARS - how neutron stars are magnetic? 3643
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