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You’ve probably heard of a supernova, when a star reaches the end of its life and explodes in a huge burst of energy. But these aren’t the only dramatic explosions in space: there are also kilonovas, which occur when two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole collide and merge. These epic events generate gamma-ray bursts and create heavy elements, although there is still a lot to learn about them.
Now, the researchers have studied the brightest kilonova ever seen and think it may have caused the birth of a massive star called the magnetar.
The researchers first observed the burst, called 200522A, on May 22 this year. They estimated that light traveled 5.47 billion years to reach us. They then used the Hubble Space Telescope and various ground-based telescopes to observe the phenomenon and found that it had emitted 10 times more infrared emissions than they expected.
“The Hubble observations were designed to look for the infrared emission that results from the creation of heavy elements – such as gold, platinum and uranium – during a collision of neutron stars, which gives rise to a brief gamma-ray burst,” he said said Edo Berger, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and principal investigator of the Hubble program. “Surprisingly, we found far brighter infrared emission than we expected, suggesting that there was additional energy input from a magnetar that was the residue from the fusion.”
This was unexpected, as scientists had previously believed that when two neutron stars merge, they produce a black hole. But these results show that the story is more complex, as the gamma-ray burst suggests the birth of a magnetar instead. A magnetar is a type of neutron star with a very powerful magnetic field, which creates a lot of radiation in the form of X-rays and gamma rays.
“Hubble really made the deal in the sense that it was the only one to detect infrared light,” explained lead author Wen-fai Fong, an astronomer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. “Surprisingly, Hubble was only able to take an image three days after the outbreak. Another observation is needed to show that there is a fading counterpart associated with the blend, as opposed to a static source. When Hubble looked again at 16 days and 55 days, we knew that not only had we captured the fading source, but we had also discovered something very unusual. The spectacular resolution of Hubble was also the key to untangling the host galaxy from the location of the explosion and to quantify the amount of light coming from the merger. “
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