Recently, Earth was hit by a powerful wave of energy emanating from a dead star, causing scientists many problems in fully understanding the phenomenon. The intense gamma rays recorded in Namibia not only surprised me with their power, but also opened up new areas of research for scientists.
These life-threatening rays came from the Vela pulsar, which is located about 1,000 light-years away from our planet. Pulsars are fascinating space objects that are the remains of massive stars that exploded as supernovae and collapsed after the cataclysm. The first pulsar was discovered by British astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967, but the latest discoveries related to the Vela pulsar have set a new record for the energy emitted by these cosmic objects.
Although it might seem that such an amazing phenomenon could suggest an attempt to establish extraterrestrial communication, the author of the study, Arash Jannati-Atai from the Astroparticle & Cosmology (APC) laboratory in France, dispelled these speculations. He explained that pulsars are natural remnants of massive stars that do not require alien intelligence to generate signals observable on Earth. In his opinion, the signals we observe are not evidence of the existence of alien intelligence there.
After the supernova explosion, these remnants leave behind a dense core from which beams of electromagnetic radiation are emitted, creating specific cosmic beacons. As these beams of radiation cross the space of our solar system, we record periodic bursts of radiation in different energy ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Emma de Oña Wilhelmi, a scientist and author of the study from the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) team, explained that pulsars are composed almost entirely of neutrons and are extremely dense. Illustrating the density of pulsars, she found that a teaspoon of their material weighs more than five billion tons, equivalent to the weight of about 900 of the Great Pyramids of Giza.
The Vela pulsar, located in the southern sky in the Sail constellation, has long attracted the attention of scientists due to its unique properties. Its small diameter of just 20 km, combined with a rotational speed of more than 11 revolutions per second, make it a fascinating research subject. Due to its rapid rotation, Vela emits a stream of charged particles along its axis of rotation at approximately 70% of the speed of light.
Scientists used the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) telescope in Namibia to examine the gamma rays of the Vela pulsar. These gamma rays were found to have the shortest wavelength and highest energy in the electromagnetic spectrum, reaching 20 teraelectronvolts, or about 10 trillion times the energy of visible light. This value is ten times greater than the gamma-ray energy of the Crab pulsar, the only previously discovered pulsar in the teraelectronvolt energy range.
This discovery is not only a challenge for modern scientists, but also a confirmation of the enormous power and secrets that our Universe hides. With each step we take into space, we discover new wonders that challenge our current understanding and arouse curiosity, opening up new research horizons for us.
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