A giant flash of light that flew past Mars comes from a powerful neutron star in a galaxy 11.4 million light years from Earth
- A giant flash of light was detected by NASA satellites in April as it passed Mars
- Scientists say it came from a powerful neutron star 11.4 million light-years away
- This is the highest burst detected by NASA satellites since 2008
- Called GRB 200415A, it took milliseconds, but updated tools were able to capture enough data to trace a path back to where it came from
A gigantic eruption that swept through the solar system in April sent scientists deep into space to investigate the origin of the high-energy eruption – and the hunt is finally over.
A group of researchers led by the University of Johannesburg revealed that the explosion, dubbed GRB 200415A, was released from a magnetar – a neutron star with a strong magnetic field – located in a spiral galaxy 11.4 million light-years away.
The elusive visitor flew past Mars in the early hours of April 15, which was picked up by a number of satellites, including the International Space Station, and led to the search beyond the Milky Way and into the distant galaxy NGC 253.
However, the burst lasted only 140 milliseconds, but the advanced orbital instruments allowed more data to be captured than from the previous flare detected 13 years ago.
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In April, a giant eruption flew through the solar system that sent scientists deep into space to discover the origin of the high-energy eruption – and the hunt is finally over
GRB 200415A was picked up by satellites at 4:42 a.m. ET on April 15, and was the first known giant flame detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope since 2008.
The recent eruption was also detected by Fermi, along with the Swift, Mars Odyssey and Wind mission satellites and the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite.
Gamma bursts (GRB) are the brightest and most energetic events in the universe.
These can only be detected when the rays are aimed directly at the Earth.
The elusive visitor flew past Mars in the early hours of April 15, which was picked up by a number of satellites, including the International Space Station, which led to the search beyond the Milky Way and to the distant galaxy NGC 253 (artist impression)
GRB 200415A was picked up by satellites at 4:42 a.m. ET on April 15, and was the first known giant flame detected by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope since 2008. The recent eruption was also detected by Fermi, along with the mission satellites from Swift, Mars Odyssey and Wind
Most of these occur billions of light years away and can last from a few milliseconds to a few hours when observed from Earth.
Scientists have known for a while that supernovas spout long GRBs, which are bursts of more than two seconds.
In 2017, a team determined that two neutron stars spiraling into each other can also give off a short GRB.
The 2017 eruption came from a safe 130 million light-years away from Earth.
Researchers first thought it was a brief gamma-ray burst, but after further investigation they found it came from a magnetar
Prof Soebur Razzaque from the University of Johannesburg said: “In the Milky Way there are tens of thousands of neutron stars.”
“Of these, only 30 are currently known as magnetars.”
Magnetars are up to a thousand times more magnetic than ordinary neutron stars.
‘Most of them emit X-rays now and then. But so far we only know a handful of magnetars that produced gigantic flares. The smartest we could detect was in 2004. ‘
‘Then GRB 200415A arrived in 2020.’
If the next giant eruption GRB occurs closer to our home galaxy the Milky Way, a powerful ground-based radio telescope like MeerKAT in South Africa may be able to detect it, he says.
‘That would be an excellent opportunity to study the relationship between high-energy gamma rays and radio wave emissions from the second explosion. And that would tell us more about what does and doesn’t work in our model. ‘