GW researchers have discovered the first example of a “wind nebula,” a cloud of high-energy particles surrounding a rare star, according to a University release.
A group of scientists led by a GW postdoctoral researcher George Younes used data from the European Space Agency’s XXM-Newton spacecraft to discover the wind nebula surrounding an ultra-magnetic neutron star, or magnetar, about 13,000 light years from Earth, according to the release. The star, J1834.9-0846, was first discovered by a NASA satellite in 2011 after an X-ray burst, the release stated.
Younes said in the release that the finding adds information on the properties and environment that created the star – facts that were previously unknown.
“Sure enough it turns out it has a very beautiful structure around it that looks very much like a wind nebula,” he said in the release. “It tells us something about [the star’s] historical activity.”
The team identified the wind nebula after finding “an unusual lopsided glow about 15 light years across,” according to the release. They then followed up with observations in March and October 2014. A paper describing their findings and co-authored by GW physics faculty members Chryssa Kouveliotou, Oleg Kargaltsev, and Alexander van der Horst will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Magnetars are extremely rare – only 29 out of 2,600 known neutron stars have been classified as magnetars. They are an “extreme” manifestation of a young neutron star, or the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight and exploded as a supernova, called a pulsar, according to the release.
This is the only observed magnetar that has a wind nebula.
The densities in a magnetar’s environment cannot be recreated on Earth, and Younes said in the release that therefore magnetars act as researchers’ laboratories.
“If these sources were close to Earth, that would have been devastating for life on Earth,” Younes said in the release. “Luckily they are very far away.”
Kouveliotou, one of the researchers, said in the release that now the researchers are interested in why this particular magnetar has a wind nebula when others do not.
“We do not know why we don’t see a nebula around every magnetar,” she said. “We could hypothesize that other environments are not as rich, as we know that this particular source is in the middle of a plethora of high energy sources.”
