When a monumental whizz comes to the end of its life , it collapses and explodes in a stupendous , gumptious event known as a supernova . Occasionally , a star will put out a last ' death war cry ' in the form of a da Gamma - ray burst ( GRB ): a hefty stream of high - energy gamma - shaft of light that we can notice from satellites and on Earth . Astronomers used to think that this outburst of gamma - re indicate that the core of the star had collapse to become a black hole . This outgrowth , anticipate the collapsar model , has been accepted for about 20 years . However , some scientist guess they have discovered another possibility .
A squad of stargazer from theMax - Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physikthink they ’ve key out a supernova that released a GRB when it turn not into a smutty hole , but instead into a strange , celestial physical object called amagnetar . A magnetar is a case ofneutron starthat , as the name suggests , has an extremely powerful magnetic field . The strength of this arena is about athousand trillion timesstronger than the Earth ’s magnetic field . This makes them the most brawny magnetic object in the lie with cosmos .
The secret of their magnetic force is still a mo of a mystery . After a monolithic star undergoes a supernova detonation , its core burst due to its gravitative attraction . This summons usually forms a neutron star , which has a magnetic playing field . However , occasionally they take shape magnetars instead , which have immense gravitational theater of operations . One theory about their conception is that the magnetar has to be twirl around100 to 1,000times per second to generate the energy for this grade of magnetics .
The previously unknown family relationship between magnetars , GRBs and supernova was found due to an epic , high - push event onDecember 9 , 2011 . TheSwift satellitefound an ultra - long durationgamma - beam outburst – one of the most energetic result in the universe . In this suit , a monolithic star going supernova . The GRB was the longest and brightest ever keep ; commonly GRBs last a few second , this one lasted for a few hr .
When measuring the afterglow of the burst , it was mark that the signals corresponded to that of a supernova . This correlation between an extremist - long GRB and a supernova was a world first . However , there was something strange about the component signals in the afterglow . While a signal from nickel-56 , an constituent formed in a supernova plosion , was expected , the amount they celebrate was far too large to be explained by a supernova forming a black fix . Therefore , something else had to be at work .
The only explanation that conniption was that this supernova had formed a magnetar . Jochen Greiner , lead source of the newspaper publisher published inNature , told IFLScience that he was highly surprised by these event . " For well-nigh 20 years we have got used to the collapsar model ( the one with the black hole ) which since then has been the standard scenario for the retentive - continuance GRBs … Now it takes some photometry at a 2 meter scope and one spectrum to overturn this conviction . "
Greiner summed up the grandness of this finding : " Many of us have been specialising on one elaborated subject , disregard what other colleague have been finding . Now we of a sudden find how several of these subjects are link up , i.e. da Gamma - ray bursts , magnetars , superluminal , supernova . " It ’s a lesson that every branch of the scientific residential area can benefit from .
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