When two neutron stars collide, scientists call it a kilonova, an astronomical event.
New research to be released in TheThe Astrophysical Journal, but available as a preprint on the ArXiv website, describes the brightest kilonova and suggests that a collision of a neutron star can sometimes produce an extreme neutron star with dense magnetic fields.
On May 22, NASA's Space Telescope discovereda gamma-ray burst in an extremely distant corner of space - GRB 200522A. Scientists believe such short bursts occur when two neutron stars merge. The collision in question happened about 5.5 billion years ago, but telescopes have only caught it now.
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Using X-rays, radio andnear-infrared rays, scientists measured the brightness of a gamma-ray burst. However, in the images taken in the near infrared, an extremely bright burst is visible - about 10 times brighter than any kilonova that scientists have noticed before.
“The near infrared light that we saw onGRB 200522A was too bright to be explained by the standard kilonova. We believe that this is a kilonova with a magnetic charge - only such a phenomenon can explain the extreme brightness, ”the scientists note.
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