Jandangga 2023 MWA update
A new stellar object
A very exciting and mysterious new object has been detected with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), by a team led by Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker. This object has been classed as a ‘magnetar’ – a rare type of star that has extremely strong magnetic fields. These magnetic fields produce powerful bursts of energy and, until now, it was believed all magnetars released this energy every few seconds, or every few minutes.
The magnetar detected by the MWA was found to release energy every 22 minutes, making it quite different to every other known magnetar. The magnetar signal was also found within telescope data taken over many years – across three decades – meaning it has been releasing energy for a very long time, and slowing down, to a point where it should not be able to emit this energy anymore. This discovery questions our understanding of the physics of neutron stars and the behaviour of magnetic fields in extreme environments.
The discovery was recently published in the high-impact scientific journal, Nature.
An artist’s impression of the ultra-long period magnetar—a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy. Credit: ICRAR.
An artist’s impression of the ultra-long period magnetar—a rare type of star with extremely strong magnetic fields that can produce powerful bursts of energy. Credit: ICRAR.
Happy anniversary!
In July, we celebrated ten years of the MWA! To mark the significant occasion, the global MWA Collaboration community – including a consortium of Swiss universities representing the latest organisations to join the international project – gathered in Perth for the milestone.
The MWA is the longest-running precursor instrument to the SKA. Since 2013, the MWA has catalogued and surveyed hundreds of thousands of galaxies, detecting the largest-known eruption in the Universe since the Big Bang, discovering new types of exotic celestial objects that generate periodic bursts of radio waves – and even uncovering new structures in the Earth’s uppermost atmosphere.
Currently the MWA is comprised of 8,192 antennas spread across more than 30 square kms on Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, and has collected 45 petabytes of data. Next year will see it generate even more data as the MWA Collaboration begins a major upgrade to double its sensitivity and probe even deeper into space.
The Federal Government has supported the operations of the MWA through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme.
Mia Walker, Project Officer, MWA