Giant star that should have been a black hole became something even stranger

A star went supernova with more than twice the mass necessitate to ultimately crumple into a black pickle . But something weird occur – the star became a magnetar , an asteroid - sized star with the most powerful magnetic line of business in the universe .

The fates of stars are almost entirely determined by their mass . If a star is anything up to five time the plenty of our Sun , it will live for several billion geezerhood before flourish into a ruby-red giant and then contracting into a degenerate lily-white dwarf . Once you get past that five solar mass threshold , mavin do n’t last near foresighted , perhaps just a few hundred thousand years , after which they irrupt in a supernova .

Now , if the star is less than twenty times the mass of the Sun , the supernova leaves behind a neutron star . Such a star packs in anywhere from 1.5 to 2 time the Sun ’s mass into a sphere only 15 mile across . As you might imagine , such a thickly packed object has incredibly strong gravitational forces , but that still chum up compared to when a mavin is twenty or more metre the Sun ’s mass . At that point , the star fall in in on itself after the supernova , creating a black hole .

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All of that should be fairly straightforward , which is why a newly find neutron star some 16,000 light - years out is such a cosmic queerness . It ’s not just any neutron star – it ’s a magnetar , the most powerfully magnetised object in the known universe . Essentially , the same mental process that chip in the Earth its charismatic field – known as thedynamo mechanics – can sometimes go into overdrive as the neutron star forms , create a magnetic study a thousand times stronger than seen in an average neutron star . At least , that ’s our best guess – nobody is quite sure why 1 in 10 neutron superstar becomes a magnetar .

The freshly discovered magnetar designated ( rich breathing time ) CXOU J164710.2 - 455216 is the remnant of a star that , by all right , should have become a black trap instead . Astronomical measurements point the original star had a mass forty times that of the Sun , set up it way over the down limit for calamitous hole formation . So how did it stop up as a magnetar ?

The best explanation is that the star pluck the wrong neighbour – it ’s surrounded by so - called Wolf - Rayet stars , thumping downcast stars that are a million times lustrous than the Sun . That sort of constant , intense radiotherapy would have been enough to strip the exploding hotshot of its aggregative way more promptly than normal , taking it from well over to just below the cutoff to become a black hole . And so , with no other selection , the star crack into a magnetar instead .

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Even so , uranologist point out that they may be able to explain this separated incident , but they still do n’t know how a adept can mislay mass so improbably quickly . As Boston University uranologist Alan Marscher explicate :

“ Our understanding of the development of the most massive stars is halter by an incomplete knowledge of the process by which [ they ] lose mass . That ’s why our idea of the minimum quite a little [ needed for ] an isolated star that finally becomes a black hole are fuzzy . ”

[ Astronomy & Astrophysics ]

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