Rare Giant Flare from Magnetar
April 30 , 2024
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- The Scientists have now detected the most distant-known instance of one of these eruptions, called a giant flare from a magnetar.
- This magnetar is residing in a galaxy called Messier 82, or M82.
- This surge of gamma rays unleashed in just a tenth of a second the amount of energy our sun would emit in a span of roughly 10,000 years.
- The M82 giant flare was the most distant known but not the most energetic.
- The one spotted in 2004 had the energy equivalent to about a million years of output from the sun.
- Magnetars are among the universe's most extreme objects.
- It is a class of the compact stellar remnants called neutron stars that possess immensely strong magnetic fields.
- Only two confirmed giant flares have been observed in our Milky Way galaxy, in 2004 and 1998.
- Only one observed in another galaxy, in 1979 in the Milky Way's neighbouring Large Magellanic Cloud.
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