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Ghostly Ring Found Circling Dead Star

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the check-your-optics dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of scientists has found a strange ring around a dead star by using images taken by NASA's Spitzer space telescope. This star, called SGR 1900+14, belongs to a class of objects known as magnetars. According to NASA, a magnetar is 'a highly magnetized neutron star and the remnant of a brilliant supernova explosion signaling the death throes of a massive star.' So far, about a dozen magnetars have been found. An amazing thing about these stellar objects is their magnetic field. One of the researchers said that 'magnetars possess magnetic fields a million billion times stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth.'

27 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. The ring by Plazmid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh great, now that NASA posted pictures on the internet of a ghostly ring, a lot of people are going to die seven days from now.

    1. Re:The ring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wouldn't worry abo...Whoa wait a minute. A ghostly ring, posted on Slashdot can mean only one thing. Do not RTFA! For the love of God DO NOT RTFA!

    2. Re:The ring by SBrach · · Score: 5, Funny

      In all fairness, they kept on rickrolling me.

    3. Re:The ring by dfm3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do not RTFA! For the love of God DO NOT RTFA! I wouldn't be so worried about that. This is Slashdot, after all...
  2. Pssst! by Sta7ic · · Score: 5, Informative

    "A million billion" is 10^6 * 10^9 = 10^15 ... we also call that "a quadrillion".

    I'd be pretty excited about studying these things, were I a physical scientist. When you get some massively powerful EMF, electrons and protons must have very "interesting" behavior.

    1. Re:Pssst! by SBrach · · Score: 5, Funny

      Is that more or less than a Brazilian?

    2. Re:Pssst! by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 4, Informative

      The standard for a billion has been 10^9 all over the world now for some years. The older value was abandoned in the UK in 1974.

    3. Re:Pssst! by fyoder · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, that depends... iirc, a billion in the UK is not the same thing as a billion here. A billion here is 10^9, whereas if memory serves me correctly a billion in the UK is a million million, or 10^12. Long and short scales

      Had to look that up because it sounded nuts. However, looks like you're sort of right, other than for the fact that UK has abandoned the long scale in favour of the short. So a quadrillion there is now a thousand trillion as well, rather than a 'billiard'.
      --
      Loose lips lose spit.
    4. Re:Pssst! by pablomme · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Only if by "all over the world" you mean English-speaking countries and Brazil. Citing Wikipedia,

      Most countries and languages in the world use the traditional long scale somewhat in contrast with your statement.
      --
      The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
    5. Re:Pssst! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I was just about to make a remark about you being an insensitive clod ;-), but please note that billion being 10^12 is not an "older value" in certain countries. Actually, their list is much longer.

      Oh yes, I am aware than on an English-speaking (-writing ?) web site, one has to expect (= billion (expt 10 9)). On the other hand, I have noticed that for many of us Nonenglishmen and Nonamericans, it is simply still often an issue of our subconsciousness that we calculate with long scale numbers without realizing at first. Therefore refraining from using words like "million billion" and using "10^15" instead might actually be a good idea, especially in case of scientific topics. :-)

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Pssst! by jd · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, they had a choice. Either switch to the small scale or have very, very large billiard tables.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    7. Re:Pssst! by guruevi · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, we can withstand quite large magnetic fields. MRI scanners are up to 16T right now (experimental) and the side effects minimal. I work in a 3T environment, and the only thing that is a problem is metal in, on or around the body, they get ripped straight out into the bore as soon as you pass the .5 Gauss line. The other precaution is when body parts form loops (like crossed arms or legs or arms/hands holding other body parts) they could potentially cause electric shocks and minor burns. Minor tingling or heat sensations of the extremities is considered not harmful. I think however, in the range (really close since magnetic fields drop with distance) of these type of things you might be able to shock or burn somebody to dead since their body acts as a coil.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    8. Re:Pssst! by Lazarian · · Score: 4, Informative
      I doubt any living thing could exist in magnetic fields that powerful. Wikipedia has some info...

      The magnetic field of a magnetar would be lethal even at a distance of 1000 km, tearing tissues due to the diamagnetism of water.

      Since magnetars rotate, I would guess that a person would probably be vaporized before being torn apart since you'd be travelling through magnetic flux fields. Such powerful fields have unusual effects on matter...

      X-ray photons readily split in two or merge together. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic wavelength of an electron.

      In a field of about 105 teslas atomic orbitals deform into cigar shapes. At 1010 teslas, a hydrogen atom becomes a spindle 200 times narrower than its normal diameter.

      I think the most powerful field ever generated in a lab was less than 200 tesla.

    9. Re:Pssst! by reverseengineer · · Score: 4, Informative
      The 16 Tesla field used to levitate that frog is towards the upper end of the field strength that can be safely tolerated for any duration by most organisms. A static magnetic field of 20T or more can interfere with enzymatic processes, and above 25T can interfere with nerve conduction. Pulsed magnetic fields can be considerably more dangerous at a given field strength, because they can induce eddy currents in the body which can cause cardiac arrhythmias, but you're still looking at around the 10T range unless your heart is particularly vulnerable.

      In contrast, the 10^11T field of a magnetar would tear you to pieces even several thousand km away, and then tear those pieces into smaller, grotesquely elongated pieces, as the field strength is enough to distort the geometries of atomic orbitals. What would of course actually kill you on your way to a magnetar are the X-rays and gamma rays the thing throws out, and these forms of radiation should be considered among the effects of a cosmically strong magnetic field. However, assuming you could survive those, the magnetic field itself would still instantly kill you. A particular problem is that your body is made up of many different kinds of atoms and molecules, which will be affected by the intense field differently depending on whether they are ions, have a dipole moment, etc., so that you will in a literal sense be disintegrated.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
    10. Re:Pssst! by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Informative

      He meant the 5 Gauss line. It's not enough to rip things off you, but you can stick paper clips to the wall. Or erase all the credit cards in your pocket.

    11. Re:Pssst! by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Interesting that we can generate a field strong enough to noticeably deform atomic orbitals.

  3. I for one welcome . . . by StefanJ · · Score: 4, Funny

    . . . whoever the hell ran weapon tests on that star and its planets.

    Hail Whoever!

    1. Re:I for one welcome . . . by pembo13 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Who said it was a test?

      --
      "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  4. Link with pic by IronChef · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2008-08/release.shtml

  5. why oh why by thermian · · Score: 4, Funny

    As soon as I read the summary I immediately thought 'Intergalactic Goatse'.

    I need less internets.

    --
    A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
  6. Ringworld? by spineboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cool!, now we just need a General Products hull # 4 sufficient for colonization. Except that the damn star is dead.

    --
    ..........FULL STOP.
    1. Re:Ringworld? by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dear Partners and VARS,

      The following is privileged information as described by your General Products N.D.A. and is not to be transmitted to customers or third parties.

      while our General Products Hulls including the #4 provide protection against most hazards encountered in interstellar travel, gravitational tides with a steep gradient such as those found in the vicinity of neutron stars including magnetars can in fact cause bodily harm to occupants while not damaging or voiding warranty on the hull, e.g. rendering of tissues/organs to pulp or plasma.

      Also, although not widely advertised, antimatter may destroy a G.P. hull completely, and void the warranty, service agreements and maintenance contracts.

      We are not putting out any bulletins to customers or potential clients at this time, and partners only are to communicate any issues or incidents to our Hindmost and Vice Hindmost Partner's Relationship Manager, but going forward G.P. will deal with any occurrences on a case by base basis.

      Yours Very Truly,

      Messus, HTO, General Products

  7. Re:In other news by Bovius · · Score: 4, Funny

    Magnetar? Sorry, I'm not really into Pokemon.

  8. Re:(As if this would be any different...) by Tubal-Cain · · Score: 4, Funny

    i.e., all of slashdot.

  9. Constellation... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny
    So far, about a dozen magnetars have been found.

    Most are in the constellation "Refrigetar".

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  10. Re:not a ring by Pollardito · · Score: 4, Informative

    the ring is the empty looking space to the right of the star. the picture is kind of misleading because it seems like they're talking about a ring around that star, but the ring is instead circling an invisible object that's near it: "The magnetar itself is not visible in this image, as it has not been detected at infrared wavelengths (it has been seen in X-ray light)."

  11. Re:In other news by Torvaun · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's super effective!

    --
    I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.