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Mystery magnetar: could vanishing beauty account for some UFO reports?
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UFO contender? Although most UFO reports seem to focus on strange lights and craft skimming close overhead, I've heard of some that report strange celestial lights that blink, as though in code.
This time, a NASA satellite caught one of the Morse-code like flashes--but relax, it wasn't an invading UFO. Instead, scientists working with the Swift satellite identified the blink-blink light as a magnetar.
... a spike of gamma-rays lasting less than five seconds washed over NASA's Swift satellite. But this high-energy flash wasn't a gamma-ray burst -- the birth cry of a black hole far across the universe. It was something much closer to home.
Swift immediately reported the event’s position to astronomers all over the world. Within a minute, robotic telescopes turned to a spot in the constellation Vulpecula. Because Swift found an X-ray glow coming from this point, astronomers cataloged the object as "Swift J195509+261406," after its position in the sky and the discovering satellite. (Well, they had to call it something!)
During the next three days, the object brightened and faded in visible light. Not once, not twice -- but 40 times! Eleven days later, it flashed again, this time at infrared wavelengths. Then, it disappeared from view. .....
Astronomers think the object was a neutron star -- the crushed innards of a massive star that long ago exploded as a supernova -- about 15,000 light-years away. Writing in the Sept. 25 issue of the science journal Nature, a team of 42 scientists concludes that Swift J195509+261406 is a special type of neutron star called a magnetar.
"We are dealing with an object that was hibernating for decades before entering a brief activity period," explains Alberto J. Castro-Tirado, lead author of the paper. "Magnetars remain quiet for decades."
Although measuring only about 12 miles across -- about the size of a city -- neutron stars have the strongest magnetic fields in the cosmos. Sometimes, those magnetic fields are super strong -- more than 100 times the strength of typical neutron stars.
Astronomers put these magnetic monsters in their own class: magnetars. Only about a dozen magnetars are known, but scientists suspect our galaxy contains many more. We just don’t see them because they’re quiet most of the time.
Although magnetars would make a great explanation for some UFO deep-sky sightings, that explanation just won't shed any light on those discussions. Why? Because this magnetar, at least, had to be seen by soemthing that could spy and decode gamma rays.
Aw, shucks. But just imagine what Hollywood could do with the concept of a mysterious, now-you-see-me, now-you-don't light picked up by say, a little girl and her puppy with a Christmas telescope fitted with a home-made red plastic wrap filter. Now, that's a concept!
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