Thanks to advances in one area, astronomy is progressing quickly. Astronomers have been able to push the boundaries of optical and IR astronomy thanks to improved equipment. Thanks to the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, which will join with observatories in Australia in the near future, radio astronomy is getting better.
Next- generation instruments are being used to study phenomena such as Fast Radio Bursts. A group of scientists led by the University of Manchester discovered a star with a magnetic field and a slow rotation. There is a possibility of a connection between different types of stars and FRBs.
The researchers were from the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. They were joined by researchers from the MeerTRAP group, which is funded by the European Research Council and works with several European universities. Their discovery was described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.
The dense remnants of massive stars that have collapsed into a supernova are called neon stars. The term "magnetar" refers to the radiation that comes from the fast spins of these stars. The timing of a pulsar's pulse is used as an astronomer's "astronomical beacon", and it is currently known of about 3000 of them.
Magnetars have been seen to have rapid periods of rotation. The team observed a theoretical class of neutron stars with very strong magnetic fields. The source was first detected thanks to a single pulse observed by the MeerTRAP instrument.
The two conducted follow up observations to confirm the position of the source and timing of the pulse. A former researcher from the University of Manchester and a current astrophysical researcher at the University of Australia said that.
“Amazingly we only detect radio emission from this source for 0.5% of its rotation period. This means that it is very fortuitous that the radio beam intersected with the Earth. It is therefore likely that there are many more of these very slowly spinning sources in the Galaxy which has important implications for how neutron stars are born and age.
“The majority of pulsar surveys do not search for periods this long and so we have no idea how many of these sources there might be. In this case the source was bright enough that we could detect the single pulses with the MeerTRAP instrument at MeerKAT.”
The ability to make simultaneous images of the sky was one of the reasons why the discovery was possible. It took an eagle eye to recognize it because it was so odd looking.
An interesting object that shows characteristics of pulsars, magnetars, and even fast radio bursts is the newly discovered neutron star. The radio emissions that are consistent with pulsars are indicative of this. The chaotic sub-pulse components are similar to magnetars.
Most radio surveys don't look for periods that last more than a few seconds. According to Ben Stappers, a professor of astrophysics at Manchester University, there are plenty of opportunities for new radio surveys in the region.
“The radio emission from this neutron star is unlike any we have ever seen before. We get to view it for about 300 milliseconds, which is much longer than for the majority of other radio emitting neutron stars. There seem to be at least 7 different pulse types, some of which show strongly periodic structure, which could be interpreted as seismic vibrations of the neutron star. These pulses might be giving us vital insight into the nature of the emission mechanism for these sources.”
Finding similar sources is likely to be difficult given how challenging this discovery was. There could be a bigger population of undetected long-period neutron stars just waiting to be discovered. This discovery raises the possibility of a new class of radio Transients, ultra-long period neutron stars, that may be related to fast radio bursts.
Astronomers have been stumped by the mystery of what causes FRBs since the first one was found in 2007. In rare instances where the source has been repeating in nature, this is the case. Astronomers still don't know what causes them, with explanations ranging from rotating neutron stars and black holes to possible extraterrestrial transmissions.
The University of Manchester is in nature astronomy.
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