A strange star about 13,000 light years away may have a solid surface. Researchers haven't seen a star like it before
at the University of Padova in Italy and his colleagues used a NASA satellite called the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer to examine X-rays from the magnetar. Specifically, they looked at the polarisation of the light – the plane in which the light waves oscillate as they propagate through space. This depends heavily on the medium through which the waves are propagating, as well as electromagnetic fields, so they were able to use it to characterise 4U’s surface and the area directly around it.
They found two strange properties that suggested the magnetar might have a solid surface. The first was that the polarisation of the light was very weak, whereas a gas would have acted as a filter and allowed mostly polarised light through. The second was a sudden 90 degree switch in the polarisation angle, exactly what simulations predict for X-rays travelling out through a solid surface directly into a space empty of everything but electromagnetic fields.
It is not yet clear whether we should expect solid surfaces like this to be common in magnetars. The researchers chose 4U because this type of observation requires a lot of light and it is one of the brightest magnetars in the sky, but the observations still took nearly a month. To gather enough data to figure out whether other magnetars’ surfaces are solid or gaseous, we may have to wait a while.
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