{"id":10866,"date":"2021-12-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/27-12-2021\/magnetar\/"},"modified":"2021-12-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T00:00:00","slug":"magnetar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/27-12-2021\/magnetar","title":{"rendered":"Magnetar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>In News<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">An international group of researchers has succeeded in measuring for the first time the characteristics of a flare on a distant magnetar.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>About<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The magnetar they have studied is about 13 million light years away, in the direction of the NGC 253, a prominent galaxy in the Sculptor group of galaxies.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The flare spewed within a few tenths of a second as much energy as the Sun would shed in 100,000 years.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">It was captured by the <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor instrument (ASIM)<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> of the International Space Station.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/LtMbUf7QKlrUeYTPlLNAYNGtuVDDH1-N6Y5QUkseM7LFoylnPk1oabiuM-KgqiEnN75zAbgFhihHnF0Ab5Qi5yYB5l9IhgeoxkmYeeXi5CUN5aHpT0F2ircziZkXdwdOEqcqK5h2\" style=\"height:327px; width:490px\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Image Courtesy:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> <\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/study-of-distant-magnetar-reveals-facets-of-the-exotic-star\/article38037663.ece\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><u>TH<\/u><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Magnetar<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>About:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A magnetar is a rare compact type of neutron star teeming with energy and magnetism.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">They are relatively rare objects, with only about thirty having been spotted within the Milky Way so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Study:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The present magnetar is only the second one to be studied which is located outside the galaxy and is also the furthest, at 13 million light years distance but is the first study to characterise such a flare from such a distant magnetar.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>How magnetars form<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">During the course of their evolution, massive stars \u2013 with masses around 10-25 times the mass of the Sun \u2013 eventually collapse and shrink to form very compact objects called neutron stars.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>A subset of these neutron stars are the so-called magnetars<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> which possess intense magnetic fields.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">These are highly dense and have breathtakingly high rotation speeds \u2013 they have rotational periods that can be just 0.3 to 12.0 seconds.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>High luminosity:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Magnetars have high magnetic fields in the range of <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>10<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><sup>15<\/sup><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> gauss<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> and they emit energy in the range given by luminosities of 10<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><sup>37<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> \u2013 10<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><sup>40<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> joules per second.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Compare this to the luminosity of the sun which is in the order of 10<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><sup>26<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> joules per second \u2013 a factor of at least 10<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><sup>11<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> lower. Further, these magnetars emit violent flares.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Energy dissipation:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Eruptions in magnetars are believed to be due to instabilities in their magnetosphere, or<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong> \u201cstarquakes\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> produced in their crust &#8211; a rigid, elastic layer about one kilometre thick. This causes waves in the magnetosphere, and interaction between these waves causes dissipation of energy.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Magnetars are very difficult to observe when they are silent. It is only during a flare that they can be observed, and these flares are so short-lived that it presents a formidable problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Cosmic lighthouses:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A few magnetars are also pulsars, those celestial lighthouses that sweep the sky with powerful radio beams (and, rarely, beams of visible light too, such as in the case of the Crab Nebula). Recently, detecting a magnetar that is also a pulsar enabled astronomers to establish an accurate distance to a magnetar for the first time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Significance<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The observations revealed multiple pulses, with a frst pulse appearing only for about tens of microseconds, much faster than other extreme astrophysical transients<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Studying these flares will not only help us understand the physics of magnetars, it will also help in understanding fast radio bursts, which are among the most enigmatic phenomena in astronomy.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Conclusion<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Magnetars are neutron stars with the strongest-known magnetic fields.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">They have up to a thousand times the intensity of typical neutron stars and up to 10 trillion times the strength of a refrigerator magnet.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:13pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">: <\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/study-of-distant-magnetar-reveals-facets-of-the-exotic-star\/article38037663.ece\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><u>TH<\/u><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News An international group of researchers has succeeded in measuring for the first time the characteristics of a flare on a distant magnetar.\u00a0 About The magnetar they have studied is about 13 million light years away, in the direction of the NGC 253, a prominent galaxy in the Sculptor group of galaxies. The flare [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,43],"class_list":["post-10866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-gs-3","tag-space"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/1320414Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}