World's Largest Telescopes Discover Bizarre Magnetic Star

“We find a hot spot that covers half of the surface of the star like a giant lighthouse that rotates in and out of our field of view. We still do not know why only half of the star is lit up in hydrogen and if this situation remains unchanged over days, weeks, years, or centuries.”

~ Dr. Edo Berger, Princeton University

Using four of the world’s most powerful telescopes, astronomers have found a bizarrely magnetic star with some very strange features. The M-type dwarf has a massive “hot spot”, which covers half of its surface area, and an unusually active magnetic field. The star lies about 35 light-years away in the constellation Boötes. If these strange “anomalies” turn out to be common for M-type stars, astronomers will have a radically altered view of the ultracool dwarfs.

“With such a unique set of observations you always expect to find the unexpected,” said Berger, “but we were shocked at the level of complexity that this object exhibits.”

The star’s radio emission is frequently interrupted with spectacular fireworks displays of minute-long flares coming from the catastrophic collisions and merging of the magnetic fields in star’s corona. The team also observed soft x-ray emission and an x-ray flare, and for the first time, charted optical hydrogen-alpha emission with a period of two hours that matches the two-hour rotation period of the star.

Similar to other ultracool M-type dwarf stars, this magnetic star known as TVLM513-46546 features surface temperatures below about 2400K (2127 Celsius) and a mass of less than 10% of our Sun. By contrast, the Sun is a G-type star with an average surface temperature of 6000K (5727 Celsius). Scientists previously believed that stars likeTVLM513-46546 were relatively simple, quiet objects, with little to no magnetic field activity.

“Theory has always said that as we look at cooler and cooler stars, the coolest will be essentially dead,” said Berger. “It turns out that stars like TVLM513-46546 have very complex magnetic activity around them, activity more like our Sun than that of a star that is barely functional.”

Berger believes the complicated magnetic field environment and possible hot spot may indicate unusual activity beneath the star’s surface (in its dynamo) or possibly even the existence of a hidden companion. The research team will continue with observations of similar stars in order to find out if this stellar oddity is indeed a rarity, or if it is actually a typical prototype for other ultracool dwarfs.

The new discovery was made possible through simultaneous observations made by four of the world’s most powerful telescopes, combining radio data from the Very Large Array, optical spectra from the Gemini North 8-meter telescope, ultraviolet images from the orbiting Swift observatory and x-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This is the first time that such a powerful set of telescopes has been trained on one of the smallest known stars. The study is part of a program attempting to reveal the origins of magnetic fields in ultracool dwarfs, stars that astronomers previously thought were more tranquil than their massive siblings.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

* These findings will be published in the February 10, 2008 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Related posts:

A Diamond Bigger than Earth Discovered in Constellation Centaurus
Strange Neutron Star is Racing Through Milky Way at 3 Million MPH

Links:

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/0708.1511
http://gemini.edu/magneticpersonality

Comments

[Sentient]

Wow, I just realized what is going to happen in with our universe. At one point in the far far future, it will all collapse upon itself into a giant diamond! Got must be a woman after all.

[Sentient is a fool]

To: Sentient
Perhaps when composing a "joke" response, regardless of how unfunny it may be, check the bloody spelling! If you had done this, maybe you would have also realized that said joke would have been barely humourous in the 40's, let alone the 21st century.

It never ceases to amazes me that we continue to discover such wonders in this world. The side effect being that I continue to lose the little faith I have in a "higher being". Science and health care (though i guess they go hand in hand is some cases) should be the world's number one priority, warfare should not be the high priority that it is on our planet...

[B.B.]

I don't know how discovering new wonders makes one less prone to believe in a higher being. Wasn't it Einstein who said there is too much order in the universe for it all to be chance? I also agree with Einstein when he said, "I am not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

[Rick]

Is that an illustration or is that for real?

[Sentient is a fool is a fool]

To: Sentient is a fool
Regardless of what you may think, your individual opinion does not reflect a general consensus of the Internet community as a whole. I happened to find Sentient's comment humorous. That currently makes two people who found it humorous, compared to a lone commentator(that's you!) who happened to decide otherwise.
You lose, sir.

[Charles Davidson]

Jupiter also has huge magnetic fields which were discovered by early Meade telescopes. It's only a matter of time before more stars and planets are discovered with similiar magnetic forces.

[Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool]

Dear Sentient is a fool is a fool, I don't really think you are a fool, but I'm going to call you one solely so that my "posted by" will read "Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool" because I find it humorous. Will someone now call me a fool so we can keep it going?

Anyway, this is an interesting discovery and it never ceases to amaze me how little we still know about the universe!

[Blaze]

Personall I find that the more wonders found in this world, the more belief I have in a "higher being". All of the incredible aspects of life and the universe we live in couldn't have happened with no purpose in mind or with no intentional creation.

[Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool is a fool]

Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool with all due respect if you belive a posted name is humoress you need watch more comedy preferable by charlie chaplin

[Matt]

Einstein was an athiest. Look it up.

[Matt needs to do his homework]

Actually Matt, you are totally wrong, so why don't you look it up, eh? Einstein never claimed to be atheist, and actually made several comments, which indicate that he definitely believed in some form of a higher power.

When he turned 50, Einstein granted an interview in which he was asked point-blank, whether he believed in God (because it had been somewhat of a mystery up until then) to which he responded, "I am not an atheist."

Can't get much clearer than that. Some claim he was a pantheist, but all he ever really claimed is that he believed something (which he actually specifically referred to as "God") was causing order in the universe, but that humans were too stupid to understand God anyway. Sounds about right to me!

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/06/cosmic-jackpot-.html

[Tom-foolery]

Dear Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool. Thank you so much for indulging in my foolish fantasy. I am very tempted to call you a fool, so my "posted by" name can be "Sentient is a fool is a fool is a fool is a fool", but I'm not going to, because I'm now done with this tom-foolery.

Still think the magnetic star is cool, though. Speaking of fools, scientists do seem a bit foolish when they keep finding out everything they thought they knew about stars is actually completely wrong. But, I won't hold it against them. At least they're trying to make sense of it all. We have to start somewhere.

I just think we all need to keep an open mind when science finds "facts", because we often later find out that the facts were not really factual.

[Shiawase]

Why people look for Einstein as a foundation for the existence of a deity? sure he was a genius, THE genius, but in the end merely a human and nobody holds the truth.

Facts like these (if it happens to be true anyway) it's what makes me think that there IS a vast diversity of all type of things in the universe and this world just happens to sustain life, as simple as that. Speculation like this kind ultimately leads to nothing.

[oneil]

largest star ever under the sun oops! over the sun.

[Summer Glau]

It's not really a diamond if one teaspoon weighs as much as one Titanic...

Wait... can you make a diamond with pure carbon?