Neutron stars are one of the end intersection of supernovae , the explosive death some monolithic asterisk experience . They are passing impenetrable and have incredible dimension . It ’s thought the collision of two Modern neutron star 4.6 billion year ago supply our Solar System with many of its hard ingredient , 100 million age before Earth constitute . Now , astronomers have announced the discovery of a new neutron star , and they were incredibly surprised to discover that it was only 240 years old . In cosmic terms , a hopeful Modern baby .
The objective is call Swift J1818.0 - 1607 and is located 16,000 easy - years from Earth . It ’s twice the tidy sum of the Sun in a sphere less than 30 km ( 20 miles ) in diameter and spin on its axis every 1.36 seconds . It ’s now one of 3,000 known neutron stars , but even among these object , it is a special case . fleet J1818.0 - 1607 is sort out as a magnetar , a neutron star with an unbelievable charismatic field . And that ’s no exaggeration .
It has a magnetized field up to 1,000 time strong than the average neutron star , or about 100 million times strong than the strong attractor make by humans . Only 31 magnetars are known in the existence . Catching one in its infancy is an unbelievable find as their properties are believed to exchange with historic period . The research draw the cosmic babe is published inThe Astrophysical Journal Letters .
" This object is showing us an early time in a magnetar ’s life than we ’ve ever escort before , very concisely after its establishment , " co - writer Nanda Rea , a research worker at the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona said in astatement . " Maybe if we understand the geological formation narration of these objects , we ’ll understand why there is such a huge difference between the bit of magnetars we ’ve found and the entire figure of known neutron principal . "
The star was spotted by NASA ’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory on March 12 this year , when Swift J1818.0 - 1607 had a sudden flare-up of XTC - beam , which made it 10 times brighter than normal . This was followed up by the European Space Agency ’s XMM - Newton observatory and NASA ’s NuSTAR scope . If its scarce magnetar status and its surprising youth were n’t enough , this object has another rarefied gadget characteristic . It is one of five magnetars that emit a long - lived radiocommunication beam , also known as radio pulsars . In fact , Swift J1818.0 - 1607 is the young pulsar ever observed .
" What ’s amazing about [ magnetars ] is they ’re quite diverse as a population , " said Victoria Kaspi , managing director of the McGill Space Institute at McGill University in Montreal and a former appendage of the NuSTAR team , who was not involved with the field . " Each time you find one it ’s secernate you a dissimilar story . They ’re very strange and very rare , and I do n’t think we ’ve seen the full range of possibilities . "
