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The universe never ceases to surprise us with each new thing that is discovered, because sometimes the discoveries are a little stranger than the previous one, which is still fascinating, but many times they break with what was known at that time.
Such is the case of a new discovery that has kept the scientific community around the world in confusion, since it is an unprecedented discovery.
On November 12, 2023, the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite was hit by a gigantic burst of gamma rays, which, although it lasted only a few milliseconds, was enough for an alert to be sent to astronomers around the world so that They directed their instruments towards the point in deep space where the gamma rays seemed to come from, with the aim of knowing their source. From this point on, scientists began to be puzzled.
As is known, gamma rays are extremely bright jets of energy, made up of photons and that have their origin in deep space, but that can reach the Earth, which have been detected since 1960, although at that time the Scientists believed they knew where these rays came from, although the reality was different.
Gamma rays are generated when a sudden explosion occurs in distant galaxies, mainly electromagnetic radiation, which is made up of photons, with a very high energy that is capable of penetrating matter and even altering it when it interacts with it.
Similarly, colliding neutron stars also produce gamma rays, as they are the extremely dense cores of stars that are already dead. Their collisions tend to be explosive and when they happen, they emit gamma rays in conjunction with other radiation and are preceded by gravitational waves.
The explosion, which was detected by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Comprehensive Gamma Ray Observatory, was too brief. Directional data from this observatory placed GRB231115A above the nearest galaxy: M82 or the Cigar Galaxy.
This galaxy is forming stars at a speed 10 times faster than the Milky Way, which means that many supernovae occur, so it was probably caused by interacting with one of its neighbors.
“If this had been a normal gamma ray burst, what people would have expected is to see the so-called afterglow,” explains Sandro Mereghetti, investigator of the Institute of Space Astrophysics and Cosmic Physics Milan in Italy in a study published in the magazine Nature. “Even short bursts of gamma rays then emit X-ray radiation in the optical band and in the radio band that lasts several hours and even days.”
However, they did not find the X-rays, so the scientists put on the table the hypothesis that the origin of the detected gamma radiation could come from one of the most powerful and at the same time strange explosions known in the universe: flare of a magnetar, a type of highly magnetic neutron star, which although small in size, has the same mass as our Sun.
Magnetars have magnetic fields of unimaginable strength, surpassing other neutron stars, but the reason for this event still remains a mystery that baffles scientists.
“Magnetars work thanks to the decomposition of the magnetic field, which causes a lot of heat, being hot objects due to this process, which also causes the emission of giant flares.” Coronal mass ejections can cause auroras here on Earth.
Image credits: Pitr | IMAGO
Detecting magnetars is rare, and according to Mereghetti, gamma ray bursts are detected about once a month, although in the last 5 decades only 3 huge magnetar flares have been observed, this from within the hundred billion stars in the Milky Way.
Detecting the flares emitted by magnetars from outside the galaxy is not easy, since this requires going to the correct point and knowing how to distinguish their radiation from other sources of gamma rays.
However, it seems that Mereghetti and his team’s hypothesis has worked and has given them a great astronomical milestone.
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