Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Germany have found a star named Westerlund 1-5 that they believe is responsible for the formation of a magnetar.
A magnetar is a neutron star that has a magnetic pull millions of times stronger than the most powerful magnets on Earth, according to CNET. The star forms when a star explodes at the end of its life.
The star was found with the ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). The team of scientists believe Westerlund 1-5 is the reason a star in Westerlund 1 star cluster, located 16,000 light years away, turned into a magnetar instead of a black hole after its supernova explosion. Experts concluded that the star was hurled out of the cluster due to its fellow star's explosion.
"Not only does this star have the high velocity expected if it is recoiling from a supernova explosion, but the combination of its low mass, high luminosity and carbon-rich composition appear impossible to replicate in a single star - a smoking gun that shows it must have originally formed with a binary companion," said Ben Ritchie, co-author of the study from the Open University in the U.K.
The team was able to reconstruct the formation of the magnetar. In the first stage, the more massive star transfers its outer layers to the less enormous star as it starts to run out of fuel. As a result, the smaller star, which would become the magnetar, starts to rotate faster, which plays a large role in the formation of the magnetar's magnetic field, Astronomy Magazine reported.
During the second stage, the smaller star become so massive that it sheds most of its mass, some of which is received by Westerlund 1-5, the original star.
"It is this process of swapping material that has imparted the unique chemical signature to Westerlund 1-5 and allowed the mass of its companion to shrink to low enough levels that a magnetar was born instead of a black hole," said Francisco Najarro, team member from the Astrobiology Center in Spain.
Najarro also said the process was "a game of stellar pass-the-parcel with cosmic consequences," CNET reported.
The discovery will be published soon in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
