A new invention could soon increase the total number of confirmed magnets to 25.
On June 3, a brief X-ray eruption near the galaxy caught attention Swift Explosion Warning Telescope (PAT). Follow-up observation and analysis confirms that it was emitted by a previously unknown magnet, now named Swift J1555.2-5402.
No matter how many magnets we have identified within the Milky Way, any new addition has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of these mysterious objects.
Magnets have been a cosmic celebrity lately. They are a very rare neutron star, the collapsed cores of stars that began with masses 8 to 30 times the mass of the Sun.
When these stars go into a supernova and throw their outer objects, their cores fall down into some of the densest objects in the universe – up to twice that of the Sun, filled in a sphere 20 kilometers (12 miles) across.
Magnets are everything, and so on. As the name implies, they have a very powerful magnetic field – 1,000 times more powerful than an ordinary neutron star, and a Four times More powerful than the earth.
These stars are hard to find, which makes it challenging to understand. Just 24 magnets Confirmed to date, In wings with another six candidates. What this means is that there is a lot we do not know about them, such as how they developed such magnetic fields.
A recent discovery has caught the attention of magnets: one of these mysterious stars caught a kind of powerful radio signal called a fast radio explosion, previously detected only from sources outside the Milky Way, the source of which is unknown.
It makes sense – magnets are turbulent beasts. When gravity tries to hold the star together – an internal force – the magnetic field is so powerful that it exerts an external force, distorting the shape of the star. This leads to continuous tension between the two forces, which occasionally produces very large earthquakes. Giant magnetic flare.
Swift J 1555.2-5402 revealed its presence With the eruption of X-radiation. Follow-up observations were made using NASA Neutron Star Interior Compound Explorer (NICER) Telescope and Swifts X-ray telescope, Both space instruments in Earth orbit.
Swift has identified a new X-ray source In the strategies of explosion, And NICER found characteristic coherent pulses of a magnet – “This confirms that the short burst was actually emitted by a new magnet,” According to a follow-up published by astronomers in the Telegram.
A full analysis is certainly pending, and we look forward to learning more about this newly discovered object, and if it can say anything new about magnets in general.