A giant explosion in galaxy M82, known as the Cigar Galaxy, reveals a rare type of star never before seen outside the Milky Way.
This is written by the scientific news website Live Science.
Could be the first of many
The Cigar Galaxy is located around twelve million light-years away from Earth in the constellation “Ursa Major”. According to the website, the researchers saw the star after it exploded and shot out intense energy. The incident should have only lasted a fraction of a second.
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The explosion led astronomers to discover what is called a magnetar – a type of rotating neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field. Only three other magnetars have been registered in the last 50 years.
According to new research, this could be the first of many magnetars outside the Milky Way, writes Live Science. This type of star shines thousands of times brighter than the sun. However, its unpredictable eruptions make it difficult for scientists to study them.
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– This discovery opens up our search for other magnetic stars. If we find more, we can begin to understand how often such flares happen and how these stars lose energy in the process, says Ashley Chrimes, researcher at the European Space Agency (ESA) in a statement.
A starquake
It all started in November 2023, when ESA saw a sudden burst of gamma radiation in the direction of the galaxy M82.
– We immediately realized that this warning was unique, said Santro Mereghetti in the statement.
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Mereghetti is the researcher at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy and lead author of the new study “A magnetar giant flare in the nearby starburst galaxy M82”. He goes on to say that bursts of gamma radiation can come from anywhere in space, but that this particular burst came from a bright nearby galaxy.
After follow-up observations, they located the outburst’s position within the Cigar Galaxy. The researchers confirm that the flare came from a magnetar.
Astronomers say the so-called starquake cracked the star’s surface and emitted highly energetic gamma rays into the universe, which explains the newly discovered flare they captured.
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