This wave of gamma rays — the most energetic form of light — released in just a tenth of a second the amount of energy that our sun emits over a period of approximately 10,000 years, scientists said.
Only two confirmed giant explosions were observed in our galaxy, the Milky Way, in 2004 and 1998, and only one had been identified in another galaxy, in 1979, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, neighboring the Milky Way, according to the researchers.
“Giant explosions are very rare events,” said astrophysicist Sandro Mereghetti, from the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) in Italy, in Milan, lead author of the research published this Wednesday in the journal Nature.
“The Milky Way contains about 30 magnetars, possibly many more, that have not been seen emitting giant flares.”
M82 — nicknamed the “cigar galaxy” because, when viewed head-on, it has an elongated, cigar-like shape — is 12 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ursa Major. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year (9.5 trillion km). The giant explosion of the Large Magellanic Cloud’s magnetar was about 160,000 light-years from Earth.
The giant M82 explosion was the most distant known, but not the most energetic. The 2004 one had an energy equivalent to about 1 million years of solar production.
Tags: Scientists detect energetic explosion magnetic neutron star
