Scientists struggle to explain powerful blast of energy that hit Earth
Earth has been hit by blast of energy from a dead star so powerful that scientists can’t fully explain it
The intense gamma rays – detected using a vast system of telescopes in Namibia – would sizzle humans to a crisp if we were exposed to them.
They originate from the Vela Pulsar around 1,000 light years from Earth, which has already been compared in appearance to the mask from the Phantom of the Opera.
Pulsars are the remains of a massive star that blew up an estimated 10,000 years ago as a supernova, then collapsed in on itself.
British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967, but this study marks the highest energy rays from a pulsar yet seen.
The Vela Pulsar is located about 1,000 light years from Earth in the Southern sky in the constellation Vela
What is a pulsar?
Sadly, it doesn’t mean that aliens are trying to contact us, according to study author Arache Djannati-Atai from the Astroparticle & Cosmology (APC) laboratory in France. ‘It is true that when they were first discovered back in 1967, the sources were named LGM1 and LGM2 for ‘little green men’, but that was almost a joke,’ he told MailOnline.
‘We know for sure pulsars are corpses of massive stars and there is no need for any alien intelligence to produce the signals that we see on Earth.’Â Pulsars are described as left-overs of stars that spectacularly exploded in a supernova, the largest explosion that takes place in space.
These pulsars emit rotating beams of electromagnetic radiation, somewhat like cosmic lighthouses. If their beam sweeps across our solar system, we see flashes of radiation at regular time intervals.
These flashes, also called pulses of radiation, can be searched for in different energy bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. ‘These dead stars are almost entirely made up of neutrons and are incredibly dense,’ said HESS scientist and study author Emma de Oña Wilhelmi.
The Vela Pulsar makes over 11 complete rotations every second, faster than a helicopter rotor. As the pulsar whips around, it spews out a jet of charged particles that race out along the pulsar’s rotation axis at about 70 per cent of the speed of light.
The observations were made using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) telescope observatory in Namibia (pictured)
‘A teaspoon of their material has a mass of more than five billion tonnes, or about 900 times the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza.’
One particular pulsar that’s long been of interest to scientists is the Vela Pulsar, located about 1,000 light years in the Southern sky in the constellation Vela.
Vela Pulsar is only about 12 miles in diameter and makes over 11 complete rotations every second, faster than a helicopter rotor.
As Vela Pulsar whips around, it spews out a jet of charged particles that race out along the pulsar’s rotation axis at about 70 per cent of the speed of light.
Using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) telescope observatory in Namibia, the scientists studied gamma rays – which have the smallest wavelengths but the most energy of any wave in the electromagnetic spectrum – being emitted from the Vela Pulsar.
The energy of these gamma rays clocked in at 20 tera-electronvolts, or about 10 trillion times the energy of visible light. This is an order of magnitude larger than in the case of the Crab pulsar, the only other pulsar detected in the teraelectronvolt energy range.
Scientists think that the source of this radiation may be fast electrons produced and accelerated in the pulsar’s magnetosphere – its system of magnetic fields. Much like planets including Earth, pulsars have a magnetosphere, an invisible forcefield that funnels jets of particles out along the two magnetic poles.
The magnetosphere is made up of plasma and electromagnetic fields that surround and co-rotate with the star. The energy of these gamma rays clocked in at 20 tera-electronvolts, or about 10 trillion times the energy of visible light.
Pulsars have a magnetosphere, an invisible forcefield that funnels jets of particles out along the two magnetic poles (pictured)
According to the study authors, the Vela Pulsar now officially holds the record as the pulsar with the highest-energy gamma rays discovered to date, which could revise existing models of astronomy.
‘This discovery is important as we have made a significant progress in probing pulsars at their extreme energy limit,’ Djannati-Atai told MailOnline. ‘Within the zoo of cosmic beasts pulsars are indeed fantastic objects – as neutron stars, they are extremely dense states of matter and have very intense magnetic fields.
‘Probing at their energy limit the phenomena taking place in pulsars and their environment helps us to improve or even to revise our theoretical models of the processes and physical conditions there.
‘It also provides for a better understanding or other very dense and highly magnetised objects which act as cosmic accelerators, e.g. the magnetospheres of blackholes.’
The new study has been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
In 1987, astronomers spotted a ‘titanic supernova’ in a nearby galaxy blazing with the power of over 100 million suns (known as SN1987A)
Image: BBC
There are two known types of supernova. The first type occurs in binary star systems when one of the two stars, a carbon-oxygen white dwarf, steals matter from its companion star.
Eventually, the white dwarf accumulates too much matter, causing the star to explode, resulting in a supernova. The second type of supernova occurs at the end of a single star’s lifetime.
As the star runs out of nuclear fuel, some of its mass flows into its core. Eventually, the core is so heavy it can’t stand its own gravitational force and the core collapses, resulting in another giant explosion.
Many elements found on Earth are made in the core of stars and these elements travel on to form new stars, planets and everything else in the universe.
Editor’s note: When Jocelyn Bell and her colleagues first observed pulsars with her primitive wire antenna in 1967, they could not believe such regular pulsing could be natural, so they christened them LGM’s, for ‘Little Green Men’. The interesting fact is that pulsars are spread out all throughout the known universe, and as each one pulses at a different rate, they could be used as navigational beacons on interstellar missions. If they are not natural, they could be artificial constructs placed there millions or billions of years ago by some unimaginably advanced race for precisely that purpose.
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Tom
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If this energy blast was potentially harmful to the earth, would the WHO, UN and retarded elites be able to save us?
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David C
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Keeping an open mind is a core aspect of the practicing scientist. What else might explain these observations? We see a lot of assumptions in the foundations of theory – which always have to be questioned to make true progress in science – they need to be questioned far more often than they have been.
Having experiments we can conduct to replicate some of the behaviors we observe is critical. Theory is great, useful, and necessary; that being said, good observation and solid experimentation is absolutely key to help potentially falsify any scientific theory and give solid grounding to our understanding.
It’s most important to allow dissenting voices to speak, and not immediately dismiss them without consideration.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Readers,
Tom and David’s comments are evidence that someone probably has read this article and I assume someone might read this comment. “he blast simultaneously shattered” is evidence that the scientist who wrote this does not accept that E = m c^2 is a valid equation. For in deducing this equation Einstein assumed that nothing could be “simultaneous’. I trust Einstein’s reasoning and not anyone who assumes that he (Einstein) was wrong. The result of the nuclear bombs are evidence that Einstein’s equation has a validity. And one does not need to be a genius to understand this.
Have a good day
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B Seidem
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And this discovery affects our daily life in which way?
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