Astronomers may have just found one of the youngest neutron stars ever—possibly only 14 years old.
Discovered in a dwarf galaxy 400 million light-years away, the object—VT 1137–0337—was spotted during the Very Large Array Sky Survey. It wasn’t visible in 1998 data but lit up with strong radio signals by 2018, suggesting it formed sometime in between.
What makes this find special? Its radio signal is 10,000 times brighter than the famous Crab Nebula. Scientists think it’s a newborn pulsar wind nebula—powered by a rapidly spinning neutron star—and it may even be evolving into a magnetar, one of the universe’s most magnetic and mysterious objects.
This rare discovery gives us a glimpse into how neutron stars and magnetars form—and how they might be connected to fast radio bursts.
Source: Dong & Hallinan, The Astrophysical Journal (2023)
Discovered in a dwarf galaxy 400 million light-years away, the object—VT 1137–0337—was spotted during the Very Large Array Sky Survey. It wasn’t visible in 1998 data but lit up with strong radio signals by 2018, suggesting it formed sometime in between.
What makes this find special? Its radio signal is 10,000 times brighter than the famous Crab Nebula. Scientists think it’s a newborn pulsar wind nebula—powered by a rapidly spinning neutron star—and it may even be evolving into a magnetar, one of the universe’s most magnetic and mysterious objects.
This rare discovery gives us a glimpse into how neutron stars and magnetars form—and how they might be connected to fast radio bursts.
Source: Dong & Hallinan, The Astrophysical Journal (2023)
Astronomers may have just found one of the youngest neutron stars ever—possibly only 14 years old.
Discovered in a dwarf galaxy 400 million light-years away, the object—VT 1137–0337—was spotted during the Very Large Array Sky Survey. It wasn’t visible in 1998 data but lit up with strong radio signals by 2018, suggesting it formed sometime in between.
What makes this find special? Its radio signal is 10,000 times brighter than the famous Crab Nebula. Scientists think it’s a newborn pulsar wind nebula—powered by a rapidly spinning neutron star—and it may even be evolving into a magnetar, one of the universe’s most magnetic and mysterious objects.
This rare discovery gives us a glimpse into how neutron stars and magnetars form—and how they might be connected to fast radio bursts.
Source: Dong & Hallinan, The Astrophysical Journal (2023)
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