While all neutron stars boast powerful magnetic fields, magnetars stand out with fields exceeding 10,000 times that of a typical neutron star.
On November 15th, 2023, a fleeting phenomenon unfolded in the vast expanse of our space. The European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite, tasked with observing, detected a brief, powerful burst originating from the nearby galaxy M82, roughly 12 million light-years away. This singular event, lasting a mere tenth of a second, sparked a scientific investigation that culminated in a groundbreaking discovery: the first confirmed extragalactic flare from a magnetar.
The location of the event immediately piqued the interest of astronomers. “Gamma-ray bursts typically originate from distant corners of the cosmos,” explains Dr. Sandro Mereghetti, lead author of the study published in, “but this one came from a bright, nearby galaxy.” This unusual origin prompted the team to seek follow-up observations.
However, XMM-Newton’s observations yielded no such afterglow. Ground-based telescopes, including the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and the French Observatoire de Haute-Provence, also failed to detect any signal in visible light. Additionally, gravitational wave detectors like LIGO, VIRGO, and KAGRA found no corresponding signal.
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