In 2014, XMM-Newton recorded X-rays from the massive star Ro Ophogenus A. In 2017, they found out that they are endowed with a periodic nature and appear as flares. Scientists used the Very Large Telescope and noticed that the star is endowed with a powerful magnetic field, due to which it is retrained into a space beacon.
Stars resembling the sun, form a strong x-ray flashes. But massive stars differ in character. If the massiveness is higher than 8 solar, then X-rays can be considered stable.
The star Rho Ophiuchus A is located in the center of the Molecular Cloud Rho Ophiuchus, in which new objects are actively born. To the surprise of scientists, the data show a huge amount of X-rays, which led the team to conduct a thorough investigation.
For the 40-hour review used XMM-Newton. In the end, managed to fix what no one expected. Instead of detecting smooth and steady radiation, they noticed periodic X-rays from Po Ophiuchus A for 1.2 days, which resembled an X-ray beacon! And this is a completely new phenomenon for stars larger than the Sun.
The star is much hotter and more massive than the sun. While there is no exact data on how X-rays are generated in such heavyweights. But one of the possibilities is a powerful internal magnetism, which can be observed in the wake of external magnetism. The researchers guessed that a large active magnetic spot could be located on the stellar surface. When the object rotates, the spot will go out of sight, causing the observed “pulsations”. But this idea had too little chance of credibility.
The second possibility could be a satellite with a lower mass, which would add its X-rays to the light of Po Ophiuchus A. But they must differ in strength, because a smaller star must cross a major one every 1.2 days in its orbit.
To understand these probabilities, the researchers used the Very Large Telescope. It turned out that X-rays are most likely associated with the idea of magnetic structures on a stellar surface. The measurements were performed in visible light using spectropolarimetry, including the study of various wavelengths of polarized starlight. The information suggests that the magnetic field of Opo Oceptora A is 500 times greater than the intensity of the sun.
Now we know that Po Ophiuchus A is the only star of its type, on the surface of which there is evidence of the presence of an active magnetic field that releases X-rays. The hunt for such stars will make it possible to understand how widespread this phenomenon is in the Universe.
