“Magnetars are neutron stars made up totally of neutrons. What makes magnetars special is their severe magnetic field, “stated Dr. Ashley Chrimes, an astronomer at the European Space Research and Technology.

SGR 0501 +4516’s strangeness was related to the aid of delicate instruments onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in addition to ESA’s Gaia spacecraft.

The magnetar was found in 2008 when NASA’s Swift Observatory identified quick, extreme flashes of gamma rays from the borders of the Milky Way.

Since magnetars are neutron stars, the natural description for their development is that they are born in supernovae, when a star takes off and can collapse down to an ultra-dense neutron star.

This seemed the case for SGR 0501 +4516, which lies near to a supernova residue called HB9.

The separation in between the magnetar and the center of the supernova residue on the sky is simply 80 arcminutes, or a little broader than your pinky finger when seen at the end of your outstretched arm.

A decade-long research study with Hubble cast doubt on the magnetar’s birth place.

After preliminary observations with ground-based telescopes soon after SGR 0501 +4516’s discovery, astronomers utilized Hubble’s splendid level of sensitivity and constant indicating identify the magnetar’s faint infrared radiance in 2010, 2012, and 2020.

Each of these images was lined up to a referral frame specified by observations from the Gaia spacecraft, which has actually crafted an extremely exact three-dimensional map of almost 2 billion stars in the Milky Way.

This approach exposed the subtle movement of the magnetar as it passed through the sky.

“All of this motion we determine is smaller sized than a single pixel of a Hubble image,” stated Dr. Joe Lyman, an astronomer at the University of Warwick.

“Being able to robustly carry out such measurements actually is a testimony to the long-lasting stability of Hubble.”

By tracking the magnetar’s position, the astronomers had the ability to determine the things’s obvious movement throughout the sky.

Both the speed and instructions of SGR 0501 +4516’s motion revealed that the magnetar might not be connected with the close-by supernova residue.

Tracing the magnetar’s trajectory countless years into the past revealed that there were no other supernova residues or enormous star clusters with which it might be associated.

If SGR 0501 +4516 was not born in a supernova, the magnetar should either be older than its approximated 20,000-year age, or it might have formed in another method.

Magnetars might likewise have the ability to form through the merger of 2 lower-mass neutron stars or through a procedure called accretion-induced collapse.

Accretion-induced collapse needs a binary star system including a white dwarf: the core of a dead Sun-like star.

If the white dwarf draws in gas from its buddy, it can grow too enormous to support itself, resulting in a surge– or perhaps the development of a magnetar.

“Normally, this circumstance results in the ignition of nuclear responses, and the white dwarf blowing up, leaving absolutely nothing behind,” stated Dr. Andrew Levan, an astronomer at Radboud University and the University of Warwick.

“But it has actually been thought that under particular conditions, the white dwarf can rather collapse into a neutron star. We believe this may be how SGR 0501 +4516 was born.”

SGR 0501 +4516 is presently the very best prospect for a magnetar in our Galaxy that might have formed through a merger or accretion-induced collapse.

Magnetars that form through accretion-induced collapse might supply a description for a few of the mystical quick radio bursts, which are quick however effective flashes of radio waves.

In specific, this situation might describe the origin of quick radio bursts that emerge from outstanding populations too ancient to have actually just recently birthed stars enormous enough to take off as supernovae.

“Magnetar birth rates and development situations are amongst the most important concerns in high-energy astrophysics, with ramifications for a lot of deep space’s most effective short-term occasions, such as gamma-ray bursts, super-luminous supernovae, and quick radio bursts,” stated Dr. Nanda Rea, an astronomer at the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain.

The findings appear in the journal Astronomy & & Astrophysics

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A.A. Chrime et al2025. The infrared equivalent and appropriate movement of magnetar SGR 0501 +4516. A&A 696, A127; doi: 10.1051/ 0004-6361/2024 53479