A huge flare past Mars came from a powerful neutron star in an 11.4 million-year-old galaxy from Earth
- A huge flame was discovered in April by NASA satellites while passing over Mars
- Scientists say it came from a powerful neutron star 11.4 million light-years away
- This is the highest explosion detected since 2008 by NASA satellites
- Named GRB 200415A, it lasted millions of miles but updated instruments were able to capture enough data to follow a route back to where it came from.
A massive flame that went through the solar system in April sent scientists into an in-depth study of space to find out where the energetic explosion came from – and the hunt is finally over.
A group of researchers led by the University of Johannesburg revealed that the explosion, known as GRB 200415A, was released by a magnetar – a neutron star with a strong magnetic field – located in a spinning galaxy 11.4 million light-years away.
The unmanned visitor passed Mars in the early hours of April 15 which was picked up by several satellites, including the International Space Station, prompting the exploration outside of Space. Milk and to the galaxy in the distance NGC 253.
The explosion, however, lasted for only 140 milliseconds, simply because the advanced orbiting instruments were able to capture more data than from the flame previously discovered 13 years ago.
Scroll down for video
A huge flame erupted through the solar system in April in which scientists launched an in-depth study of space to find out where the full-energy explosion came from – and the hunt is finally over.
The GRB 200415A was built at 4:42 am ET April 15 by satellites and was the first known large flame detected since 2008 by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope.
The explosion was recently discovered by Fermi, along with Swift mission satellites, Mars Odyssey and Wind and the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite.
Gamma-ray (GRB) explosions are the brightest and most vivid events in the universe.
These can only be found when the beams are marked directly on Earth.
The unmanned visitor passed Mars in the early hours of April 15 which was picked up by several satellites, including the International Space Station, which prompted the extraterrestrial exploration -Money Trail and to the distant galaxy NGC 253 (artist’s impression)
The GRB 200415A was built at 4:42 am ET April 15 by satellites and was the first known large flame detected since 2008 by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope. The explosion was recently discovered by Fermi, along with Swift, Mars Odyssey and Wind mission satellites
Most of these occur billions of light years away and can last from a few thousand million to a few hours when viewed from Earth.
Scientists have known for some time that supernovas spray long GRBs, which explode in more than two seconds.
In 2017, a team of two neutron stars spinning into each other also decided to give a short GRB.
The 2017 explosion came from 130 million light-years away from Earth.
Researchers initially thought it was a short gamma-ray explosion, but after another study they confirm that it came from a magnetar.
Professor Soebur Razzaque from the University of Johannesburg said: ‘In the Milky Way there are tens of thousands of neutron stars.’
Of those, only 30 are known to be magnetars. ‘
Magnets are up to a thousand times more magnetic than normal neutron stars.
Most emit X-rays now and then. But so far, we only know of a handful of magnetars that made big flames. It was the clearest thing we could find in 2004. ‘
‘GRB then reached 200415A in 2020.’
If the next big GRB flare happens closer to our home galaxy the Milky Way, it may be able to find a powerful radio telescope on the ground like MeerKAT in South Africa, he says.
‘That would be a good opportunity to study the link between very high energy gamma-ray emissions and radio wave emissions in the second explosion. And that would tell us more about what works and what doesn’t work in our model. ‘