Posted on 05/23/2025 10:07:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Researchers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered the magnetar called SGR 0501+4516 is traversing our galaxy from an unknown place of origin. Researchers say that this runaway magnetar is the likeliest candidate in our Milky Way galaxy for a magnetar that was not born in a supernova explosion as initially predicted. It is so strange it might even offer clues to the mechanism behind events known as fast radio bursts...
But a decade-long study with Hubble cast doubt on the magnetar's birthplace. After initial observations with ground-based telescopes shortly after SGR 0501+4516's discovery, researchers used Hubble's exquisite sensitivity and steady pointing to spot the magnetar's faint infrared glow in 2010, 2012, and 2020. Each of these images was aligned to a reference frame defined by observations from the Gaia spacecraft, which has crafted an extraordinarily precise three-dimensional map of nearly two billion stars in the Milky Way...
"Normally, this scenario leads to the ignition of nuclear reactions, and the white dwarf exploding, leaving nothing behind. But it has been theorized that under certain conditions, the white dwarf can instead collapse into a neutron star. We think this might be how SGR 0501 was born," added Andrew Levan of Radboud University in the Netherlands and the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
SGR 0501+4516 is currently the best candidate for a magnetar in our galaxy that may have formed through a merger or accretion-induced collapse. Magnetars that form through accretion-induced collapse could provide an explanation for some of the mysterious fast radio bursts, which are brief but powerful flashes of radio waves. In particular, this scenario may explain the origin of fast radio bursts that emerge from stellar populations too ancient to have recently birthed stars massive enough to explode as supernovae.
(Excerpt) Read more at science.nasa.gov ...
This is an artist's impression of a magnetar, which is a special type of neutron star with an incredibly strong magnetic field. Neutron stars are some of the most compact and extreme objects in the universe. These stars typically pack more than the mass of the Sun into a sphere of neutrons about 12 miles across. The neutron star is depicted as a white-blueish sphere. The magnetic field is shown as filaments streaming out from its polar regions.Illustration: ESA
Roaming Magnetar ...
Great name for a band. Or user name on a social media site ...
Not a bad idea as a three-fer. :^)
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On their debut album they could cover and rework Madonna’s “Lucky Star”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThHz9wlBeLU
from Wikipedia:
A sugar cube of neutron star material would weigh approximately 1 trillion kilograms (or 1 billion tons) on Earth.
In that case, we’d all have to start drinking it black.
Lost and found.
I’m still shocked and angry at the obamatar discovered in 2008 and the horrendous damage that it did to Earth...
hmmm...
I'm going to go with Honolulu.
The Roaming Charges will be astronomical!......................
These guys are funny. Believing they could know everything. They sure communicate as if they are certain about things that they are only guessing at.
That’s incomprehensible…
If you shoot a proton at it, do you get a really cool isotope of hydrogen?
Oh I thought they were talking about a magnetic car. Never mind.
What’s really funny are people who believe they can read minds.
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