February 1, 2023

Artist's impression of a magnetar eruption. (Image NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports an explanation for the abrupt slowdown in the rotation of the magnetar cataloged as SGR 1935+2154 and its attribution to a sort of volcano that ejected a kind of wind into space. A team of researchers used X-ray data from ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope and NASA’s NICER instrument to analyze changes in the magnetar. Their conclusion is that the activity of the pseudo-volcano altered the magnetar’s magnetic field, slowing down its rotation, what in jargon is called anti-glitch. That led to the beginning of radio wave emissions subsequently detected by the Chinese FAST radio telescope.