Mysterious Magnetic Star Suddenly Wakes Up and Starts Sending Radio Waves
“These bizarre objects are neutron stars possessing magnetic fields a million billion times more powerful than Earth’s field, or some 1,000 times greater that those of normal neutron stars.”
As explained in Sky & Telescope, magnetars are not something you want to approach while wearing a steel belt buckle. Actually, you may not want to get close at all. Here’s what Scientific American says will happen:
“X-ray photons readily split in two or merge. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron.”
Without knowing what any of those things mean, it still sounds pretty bad. However, astronomers were excited to discover XTE J1810–197 in 2004 because it was the first magnetar to have detectable radio pulsations or waves. The waves were highly variable and continued until late 2008 when they suddenly stopped. Astronomers are a patient and persistent bunch, so a group led by Lina Levin of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester kept on watching the magnetar using the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory. After squinting into the eyepiece for ten years (figuratively, of course), Levin was rewarded for her perseverance on December 8, 2018, when she detected a pulsed radio signal at 1.52 GHz from XTE J1810–197.
After the high-fives had ended and the champagne was gone, they noticed that something had changed with XTE J1810–197.
“The pulse variations seen so far from the source have been significantly less dramatic, on timescales from hours to months, than seen in 2006.”
The magnetism of a magnetar is a mystery, although the most likely cause is its dense mass spinning at hundreds to thousands of times per second. The equally massive and mysterious radio waves seem to come from starquakes caused by movement in the magnetar’s crust that realigns its magnetic field.
So, the radio waves aren’t being sent by a dying alien race looking for a place to send their child to live and start their species anew while becoming an indestructible superhero whose arch-enemy is ironically named Magnetar … even if it would make a great movie.
For now, we have to be content with reading Levin’s new study and waiting for future observations.
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/03/mysterious-magnetic-star-suddenly-wakes-up-and-starts-sending-radio-waves/
宇宙中最邪惡的現象，恐怖的磁星
2018-12-05
宇宙中那些危險的地方爆炸力是很強的，爆炸產生的線力比原子彈爆炸的威力不知道強多少倍，在這個能量無限的宇宙里卻到處充滿了這種爆炸，我們熟悉的大爆炸理論似乎就是由此得來的。宇宙時刻都在爆炸中一直到小篇發稿時也沒停過。科學家通過衛星記錄到了一次宇宙在三萬光年以外的一次爆炸，這次爆炸的威力可以輕易推毀地球的外部大氣層，此次爆炸是由一顆磁星引起的。
磁星是宇宙中最多且比較危險的星星之一，一顆磁星的磁場力約是地球磁場力的千萬億倍，這些磁星擁有着宇宙中最強的磁場，在銀河系中被科學家們證實的磁星共12顆，磁星是中子星的一個特殊類別。磁星的形成基於超大行星的毀滅，當一顆行星滅亡時，它開始瓦解形成超新星，有時超新星的爆炸中心會形成密集的中子星，擁有極強的磁場。這些磁星放射出高能的X射線和伽馬射線，科學家認為一般的中子星誕生於那種比太陽質量大十或二十倍的恆星，磁星更有可能誕生於甚至更大的行星，那種比太陽質量大40倍的行星。這麼大質量的行星因為太重所以不太可能形成中子星，相反它的質量可以跟黑沒差不多，黑洞的形成就是把一定數目的質量填入到一定的體積中。有科學家認為那些超大行星在爆炸為超新星前，經歷失重過程，損失了百分之九下的質量，就無法陷入黑洞。餘下的部分變成了中子星，擁有超強磁力的中子星。因為磁力過強的原因使得它表面因磁力影響而變形，在它表面就會像地球地震一樣，科學家把這種現象叫做星震，磁星的星震會爆發出強大的火球，這火球會飛出磁星的邊緣，磁星出現這些火焰後，比銀河裏所有星星都要亮。火焰將持續僅十分之一秒，巨大的火焰里是以光速傳播的伽馬射線爆炸但這種爆炸不會持續太長時間。
磁星的磁場能毫不費力的扭曲人體內的原子，將人撕碎。那麼我們太陽系中如果有個磁星爆炸了那怎麼辦，那可以肯定的說，地球完了。科學家算出就算在十九光年遠的一個磁星爆炸了也將會引起宇宙混亂，磁星爆炸引發的伽馬射爆將會破壞我們的臭氧層，導致大量生物滅絕，但磁星爆炸的幾率很小，這個就跟恆星穿過我們太陽系一樣，自太陽系形成後就沒有恆星進來過，另個還有一個原因就是磁星的生命周期只有幾千年到一萬年，一萬年後它們會變暗淡，所以在這裏大家不要慌，別擔心磁星爆炸的問題。
https://kknews.cc/zh-hk/science/4n8rn4g.html
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