Astronomers directly observe birth of a magnetar for the first time
Astronomers have reported several discoveries that deepen scientific understanding of some of the most extreme events in the universe, including the direct observation of a magnetar forming and new insights into how compact stellar remnants collide.
For the first time, researchers have directly observed the birth of a magnetar, a rapidly spinning neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field. The observation confirms that such objects can power superluminous supernovae, among the brightest explosions known in the cosmos.
The findings, published on March 11 in the journal Nature, focus on a supernova designated SN 2024afav, located about one billion light years from Earth. Scientists led by graduate student Joseph Farah of the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Las Cumbres Observatory detected a distinctive “chirping” pattern in the light emitted by the supernova.
The signal consisted of a sequence of accelerating peaks in brightness that could only be explained through an effect predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity known as Lense-Thirring precession. According to the researchers, the phenomenon revealed the influence of a newly formed magnetar spinning inside the expanding stellar debris.
“This is the first time general relativity has been used to describe the internal mechanics of a supernova,” Farah said in a statement. The discovery provides strong observational support for a theoretical model proposed 16 years ago by UC Berkeley physicist Dan Kasen, who predicted that magnetars could act as the central engine driving superluminous supernova explosions.
Researchers also reported new evidence about how compact stellar objects merge. In a separate study published on March 11 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists found the first strong indication that a neutron star and a black hole can spiral together on an elliptical orbit before colliding.
The analysis focused on the gravitational wave event GW200105. Researchers determined that the system ultimately formed a black hole about 13 times the mass of the Sun. The team confirmed the elliptical nature of the orbit with a statistical confidence of 99.5 percent.
Geraint Pratten of the University of Birmingham explained that the orbital shape provides clues about the system’s history. According to him, the elongated trajectory suggests the pair did not evolve quietly in isolation but was likely influenced by gravitational interactions with nearby stars or a third companion object. The finding challenges the widely held assumption that such mergers follow a single formation pathway.
Another discovery announced by NASA on March 10 involves a rare neutron star collision detected in an unusual cosmic environment. Observations from several space telescopes including Chandra, Fermi, Swift and Hubble indicate that a neutron star merger occurred within a small galaxy embedded in a massive stream of gas stretching about 600,000 light years.
The event, known as GRB 230906A, took place roughly 4.7 billion light years from Earth. Scientists say this is the first time such a merger has been identified in this type of galactic structure. The discovery may help explain how heavy elements such as gold and platinum are distributed across intergalactic space.
These findings coincide with the release of the latest gravitational wave catalog from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration. The new dataset, GWTC-4, includes 128 additional detections collected over nine months of observations, more than doubling the previous total of 90 recorded events.
Together, the results provide astronomers with new clues about the formation of extreme cosmic objects and the violent interactions that shape the universe.
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