Magnetars are the strongest magnets in the Universe. These super-dense dead stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields can be found all over our galaxy but astronomers don't know exactly how they form. Now, using multiple telescopes around the world, researchers have uncovered a living star that is likely to become a magnetar. This finding marks the discovery of a new type of astronomical object -- massive magnetic helium stars -- and sheds light on the origin of magnetars.
Magnetars are the strongest magnets in the Universe. These super-dense dead stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields can be found all over our galaxy but astronomers don't know exactly how they form. Now, using multiple telescopes around the world, including European Southern Observatory facilities, researchers have uncovered a living star that is likely to become a magnetar.
"This star became a bit of an obsession of mine," says Tomer Shenar, the lead author of a study on this object published today in Science and an astronomer at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands."Tomer and I refer to HD 45166 as the 'zombie star," says co-author and ESO astronomer Julia Bodensteiner, based in Germany."This is not only because this star is so unique, but also because I jokingly said that it turns Tomer into a zombie.
Shenar and his team set out to study the star using multiple facilities around the globe. The main observations were conducted in February 2022 using an instrument on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope that can detect and measure magnetic fields. The team also relied on key archive data taken with the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Shenar's team had found that the star has an incredibly strong magnetic field, of 43,000 gauss, making HD 45166 the most magnetic massive star found to date [2]."The entire surface of the helium star has a magnetic field almost 100,000 times stronger than Earth's," explains co-author Pablo Marchant, an astronomer at KU Leuven's Institute of Astronomy in BelgiumThis observation marks the discovery of the very first massive magnetic helium star.
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