Enlarge / Helium-rich Wolf-Rayet stars typically kind by the ejection of hydrogen and different supplies. (credit score: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Manufacturing Workforce)
Magnetars are among the most excessive objects we find out about, with magnetic fields so robust that chemistry turns into unattainable of their neighborhood. They’re neutron stars with a superfluid inside that features charged particles, so it is easy to grasp how a magnetic dynamo is maintained to assist that magnetic area. But it surely’s a bit of tougher to totally perceive what begins the dynamo off within the first place.
The main thought, which advantages from its simplicity, is that the magnetar inherits its magnetic area from the star that exploded in a supernova to create it. The unique magnetic area, when crushed all the way down to match the tiny measurement of the ensuing neutron star, would supply an enormous kick to begin the magnetar off. There’s only one drawback with this concept: we’ve not noticed any of the extremely magnetized precursor stars that this speculation requires.
It seems that we have now been observing one for years. It simply appeared like one thing fully completely different, and it took a extra cautious evaluation, printed at this time in Science, to grasp what we have been observing.
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