Invisible Lighthouse: Magnetar Pulse in a Gamma-Ray Burst ⚡ экспресс
It's thought that the merger of compact stars leads to a black hole and a short gamma-ray burst. However, recent long bursts from mergers pointed to a different engine — a rapidly spinning, super-magnetized neutron star (millisecond magnetar). In gamma-ray burst GRB 230307A, a periodic signal at 909 Hz was found, lasting only 160 ms in a transitional moment as the central jet faded. It resembles a magnetar spinning — a cosmic lighthouse. If confirmed, it would be the first direct evidence of such a scenario, explaining the nature of long gamma-ray bursts from mergers.
Some cosmic explosions—gamma-ray bursts—last just a couple of seconds, but GRB 230307A glowed for several minutes. Usually such an explosion gives birth to a black hole, but the prolonged glow hinted at a different outcome: perhaps a magnetar emerged—a hyper-magnetized neutron star spinning at a furious rate.
Telescopes caught a fleeting rhythmic signal in this burst—like the beam of a distant lighthouse momentarily sweeping over Earth. The frequency of 909 hertz means 909 rotations per second: a typical tempo for a newborn pulsar. The signal lasted just 160 milliseconds, shorter than a blink, but in that time the magnetar released as much energy as the Sun does in a million years.
This ‘lighthouse’ signal confirms for the first time that it is a neutron star, not a black hole, that can power long gamma-ray bursts. Such observations will help unravel how the most extreme engines in the Universe work.
🎯 A neutron star is the core of a dead star, compressed to the size of a city: a teaspoon of its material would weigh billions of tons.
🎬 In the novel 'Dragon's Egg', Robert Forward imagined life on the surface of a neutron star, where monstrous gravity speeds up time thousands of times.