With the help of European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) La Silla and Paranal Observatories in Chile, experts have found a link between a long-duration burst of gamma rays and a supernova explosion. The observations unveiled that supernova was found to be powered by the decaying super-strong magnetic fields around the star.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are considered to be the result of massive explosions. These bursts last for a few seconds and there are very rare occasions when the gamma rays continue for hours. One such burst was detected by the Swift satellite on December 9, 2011.

The burst named 111209A was studied after the afterglow from the burst faded. Using the GROND instrument on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla and the X-shooter instrument on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, astronomers studied the burst.

Astronomers found a supernova, named SN 2011kl. For the first time the supernova was found to be linked with such a long duration GRB. Jochen Greiner from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, said, “Since a long-duration gamma-ray burst is produced only once every 10,000–100,000 supernovae, the star that exploded must be somehow special”.

From the observations, it also became clear that the scenario of the weeklong burst of optical/infrared emission from the supernova due to the decaying of radioactive nickel-56 that gets formed in the explosion was not applicable in the case of GRB 111209A.

As per the astronomers, the only explanation was that the supernova was powered by a magnetar, considered to be the most strongly magnetized objects in the known universe.