In a new study, astronomers analyzed radio pulses coming from the magnetar PSR J1745-2900 – a rotating dense burnt star with a powerful magnetic field – which is located near a supermassive black hole (SMBH) lying in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. In this study, it was shown that magnetars, similar to a magnetar, located in the vicinity of the Milky Way, may be associated with mysterious fast radio bursts. Rapid radio flashes are bursts of high-energy radiation, whose sources are located somewhere outside our Galaxy, but the exact location and nature of these sources remain unknown to scientists.
Our observations show that a radio magnet can emit pulses, the main characteristics of which are close to those of fast radio flashes.
Other astronomers have also suggested that magnetars located near the black hole may be sources of fast radio flares, but more research is needed to confirm these assumptions.
-Aaron Pearlman, who presented the results of a new study at the American Astronomical Society meeting held in Seattle, USA
This research team, led by Walid Majid from the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, watched a magnetar called PSR J1745-2900 using NASA’s largest radio antenna, the Deep Space Network in Australia.
Investigation of the pulses emitted by this magnetar allowed scientists, in addition to detecting similarities with fast radio flashes, to find out that the periodic signal of the pulsar demonstrates uncharacteristic for ordinary magnetars variability on a scale of several milliseconds, which is expressed in non-periodic broadening of individual peaks. According to Majid’s command, this variability may be associated with the movement of high-speed plasma clots in the vicinity of a magnetar, but more research is needed to confirm or refute this hypothesis.
Riddles of magnetar PSR J1745-2900
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