The Earth witnessed an unprecedented gamma-ray burst. This explosion stunned the scientific world. Scientists estimate that the energy released was 10 trillion times that of visible light. Researchers think that the source of this explosion could be a pulsar, a dead star. What caused such a huge explosion is another subject of research. Here are the details…
The scientific world is investigating the cause of the gamma burst from a dead star, a pulsar!
Let’s get to know the pulsars that caused the explosion that stunned the whole world a little more closely. Pulsars are the remnants of a massive star that exploded as a supernova 10,000 years ago and then collapsed in on itself. These cosmic objects, which are only 20 kilometers in diameter, spin and create a powerful magnetic field.
The nearest Vera Pulsar is 1000 light years away from our planet. This cosmic object is also located in the constellation Vera. Scientists recently conducted a study of the Vela Pulsar. As a result, they found that this pulsar is the brightest source ever seen in the radio band. In addition to being the brightest cosmic object, this pulsar also holds the title of the brightest permanent source. As research deepens, the mysteries of pulsars are being unraveled. New research has revealed that there is a part of the radiation with even higher energy components.
“This is about 200 times more energetic than all the radiation previously detected in the object in question,” said co-author Christo Venter from North-West University in South Africa. Scientists don’t know exactly how this could have happened.
The explosion that stunned the world was detected at the High Energy Stereoscopic System observatory in Namibia. Emma de Oña Wilhelmi, a scientist at the observatory, said: “These dead stars are almost entirely made of neutrons and are incredibly dense: A teaspoon of material has a mass of more than 5 billion tons, about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”
These pulsars look like cosmic lighthouses. They also emit beams of electromagnetic radiation. If their beams pass over our solar system, we would witness flashes of radiation at regular intervals. When scientists observe these beams from Earth, they will see them as regular rhythmic pulses.
Scientists think the radiation is made up of plasma and electromagnetic fields that surround the star and rotate with it. They also speculate that the reason why it spreads so widely may be due to the fast electrons produced and ejected by the pulsar’s magnetosphere. Scientists will investigate the radiation in detail to find the different energy bands in the electromagnetic spectrum. This will help them unravel the mystery of this event.
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