Royal Astronomical Society | 2020 Jun 03
A new ultra-bright source of X-rays has awakened in between our galactic neighbours the Magellanic Clouds, after a 26-year slumber. This is the second-closest such object known to date, with a brightness greater than a million Suns. ...
The object, known as RX J0209.6-7427, was first detected during a 6-month long outburst in 1993. Though it was initially identified as a Be-type X-ray binary, its true nature remained a mystery as it lingered in a dormant state for the next 26 years, only flaring up again in November last year.
Now, a team of Indian scientists have used AstroSat, India’s first dedicated space observatory, to reveal the extreme nature of the source, and have detected broad-energy X-ray pulsations in the object for the first time. This classifies it as a type of object known as an ultra-luminous X-ray pulsar (ULXP).
The pulsar is located in the Magellanic Bridge, a stream of gas and stars linking the Magellanic Clouds. These are two of our nearest galactic companions, and some of the most distant objects visible to the naked eye. The new X-ray source is the second-closest ULXP known to date, after a 2018 discovery in our own Milky Way galaxy, and is only the eighth such object ever discovered. ...
Study of Recent Outburst in the Be/X-ray Binary RX J0209.6-7427 with Astrosat:
A New Ultraluminous X-ray Pulsar in the Magellanic Bridge? ~ Amar Deo Chandra et al
- Monthly Notices of the RAS 495(3):2664 (July 2020) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1041
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:2004.04930 > 10 Apr 2020 (v1), 27 Apr 2020 (v2)