A neutron star (blue spot at the center of the red ring) located within the remains of a supernova in the Small Magellanic Cloud, located 200,000 light years from Earth. Start of a brand-new class of neutron star.
Neutron stars are exceptionally dense remnants of supernova surges of massive stars.” This is the start of a new class of neutron stars. The University of Manchester team made usage of the TRAPUM facilities, moneyed and set up by the Max Planck Institut für Radioastronomie and the Max Planck Geselschaft.
The star was at first spotted from a single pulse. It was then possible to verify multiple pulses using synchronised successive eight-second-long images of the sky, to validate its position.
Neutron stars are incredibly dense remnants of supernova explosions of enormous stars. Researchers understand of about 3,000 of these in our Galaxy. The brand-new discovery is unlike anything seen so far.
— Dr. Manisha Caleb
Research study lead Dr. Manisha Caleb, previously from the University of Manchester and now at the University of Sydney, stated: “Amazingly we just discover radio emission from this source for 0.5 percent of its rotation period.
” This implies that it is extremely fortunate that the radio beam intersected with the Earth.
” It is therefore likely that there are a lot more of these really slowly spinning stars in the Galaxy, which has essential implications for comprehending how neutron stars are born and age.
” The majority of pulsar studies do not browse for periods this long, so we have no concept how many of these stars may exist.”
The newly discovered neutron star is named PSR J0901-4046 and seems to have at least 7 various pulse types, some of which take place at routine periods. It shows qualities of pulsars, ultra-long period magnetars, and even fast radio bursts– brief flashes of radio emission in random places in the sky.
” This is the beginning of a new class of neutron stars. Dr. Caleb said.
See Strange Radio-Emitting Neutron Star Discovered in Stellar Graveyard for more on this discovery.
Reference: “Discovery of a radio-emitting neutron star with an ultra-long spin duration of 76 s” by Manisha Caleb, Ian Heywood, Kaustubh Rajwade, Mateusz Malenta, Benjamin Willem Stappers, Ewan Barr, Weiwei Chen, Vincent Morello, Sotiris Sanidas, Jakob van den Eijnden, Michael Kramer, David Buckley, Jaco Brink, Sara Elisa Motta, Patrick Woudt, Patrick Weltevrede, Fabian Jankowski, Mayuresh Surnis, Sarah Buchner, Mechiel Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Laura Nicole Driessen and Rob Fender, 30 May 2022, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/ s41550-022-01688-x.
Research partners consist of the 77-person ThunderKAT team, co-led by the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford.
This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research study and innovation program (grant agreement No 694745). The MeerKAT telescope is run by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI). The University of Manchester team utilized the TRAPUM facilities, moneyed and installed by the Max Planck Institut für Radioastronomie and the Max Planck Geselschaft.
A neutron star (blue area at the center of the red ring) situated within the remains of a supernova in the Small Magellanic Cloud, located 200,000 light years from Earth. Credit: ESO/NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/ F. Vogt et al
. Beginning of a brand-new class of neutron star.
A new kind of neutron star has actually been found by a University of Sydney astronomer and her coworkers in an unusual Galactic graveyard. Unlike any of its stellar neighbors, the star pulses.
A worldwide group led by a University of Sydney researcher has found an uncommon radio signal emitting neutron star that turns extremely slowly, finishing one rotation every 76 seconds.
Dr. Manisha Caleb. Credit: University of Sydney
The star is distinct because it lives in the neutron star graveyard, where no pulsations are expected. The discovery was made by the MeerTRAP group utilizing the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa and was released on May 30, 2022, in the journal Nature Astronomy.
