Discovered a star that discharges a billion times more energy than the Sun

Scientists discovered a star from a violent eruption of energy in the galaxy NGC 253 13 million light-years away.

As reported in the journal Nature last month, the gamma-ray burst dubbed GRB 2001415 lasted only a tenth of a second but released a billion times more energy than the Sun. It is emitted from a powerful magnetic star in the galaxy NGC 253 in the constellation Jade.

Simulates a powerful burst of energy emanating from a magnetic star.

The discovery is special because it was made fully automated by artificial intelligence (AI) through a system developed by the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of Spain's University of Valencia.

Magnetic stars are strongly magnetized neutron stars. Even when inactive, they can be 100,000 times brighter than our Sun. In the case of the star that created the GRB 2001415 explosion, it was indeed a "cosmic monster", emphasized Professor Victor Reglero at the University of Valencia, lead author of the study.

The cause of this violent outburst is not fully understood, but Reglero speculates that it could be caused by instability in the star's magnetosphere, or by some kind of "earthquake" in its crust. .

"Regardless of the trigger, the event will generate Alfvén waves in the star's magnetosphere," added study co-author Alberto J. Castro-Tirado. Alfvén is a type of hydrodynamic magnetic wave that also occurs in the Sun, interacting with each other to dissipate energy.

At a distance of 13 million light-years, GRB2001415 is the most distant energetic burst ever detected in a magnetic star. This discovery could help scientists better understand fast radio bursts - one of the most mysterious phenomena in the universe.