GSFC: First 'Wind Nebula' around a Magnetar

[bystander]

First 'Wind Nebula' around a Magnetar
NASA | Goddard Space Flight Center | 2016 June 21

[img3="This X-ray image shows extended emission around a source known as Swift J1834.9-0846, a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star called a magnetar. The glow arises from a cloud of fast-moving particles produced by the neutron star and corralled around it. Color indicates X-ray energies from observations by the ESA's XMM-Newton on March 16 and Oct. 16, 2014. Credits: ESA/XMM-Newton/Younes et al 2016"]http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files ... labels.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

Astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of high-energy particles called a wind nebula around a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star, or magnetar, for the first time. The find offers a unique window into the properties, environment and outburst history of magnetars, which are the strongest magnets in the universe.

A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. Each one compresses the equivalent mass of half a million Earths into a ball just 12 miles (20 kilometers) across, or about the length of New York's Manhattan Island. Neutron stars are most commonly found as pulsars, which produce radio, visible light, X-rays and gamma rays at various locations in their surrounding magnetic fields. When a pulsar spins these regions in our direction, astronomers detect pulses of emission, hence the name.

Typical pulsar magnetic fields can be 100 billion to 10 trillion times stronger than Earth's. Magnetar fields reach strengths a thousand times stronger still, and scientists don't know the details of how they are created. Of about 2,600 neutron stars known, to date only 29 are classified as magnetars.

The newfound nebula surrounds a magnetar known as Swift J1834.9-0846 -- J1834.9 for short -- which was discovered by NASA's Swift satellite on Aug. 7, 2011, during a brief X-ray outburst. Astronomers suspect the object is associated with the W41 supernova remnant, located about 13,000 light-years away in the constellation Scutum toward the central part of our galaxy. ...

The Wind Nebula around Magnetar Swift J1834.9-0846 - George Younes et al

• arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1604.06472 > 21 Apr 2016

XMM-Newton view of Swift J1834.9-0846 and its Magnetar Wind Nebula - George Younes et al

• Astrophysical Journal 757(1):39 (2012 Sep 20) DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/757/1/39
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1206.3330 > 14 Jun 2012 (v1), 27 Jul 2012 (v2)