Artist’s impression of the extremely long-period magnetar - a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce violent bursts of energy.
The star could be a magnetar with properties that have yet to be explained. Artist's impression of the extremely long-period magnetar - a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce violent bursts of energy. ICRAR - A new type of stellar object could challenge our understanding of neutron stars. An international team, including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has discovered a celestial body in the constellation Shield (Scutum) that could be an ultralong-period magnetar, a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce violent bursts of energy. All magnetars known to date release energy at intervals of a few seconds to a few minutes. The newly discovered object emits radio waves every 21 minutes, which would make it the magnetar with the longest period ever discovered. Rotating neutron stars have magnetic fields that are more than a billion times stronger than the strongest magnetic fields produced on Earth.
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