Noise without sound!

– What’s the latest on magnetars?

Magnetars are a type of neutron star, that has a very powerful magnetic field. That magnetic field slowly decays as the magnetar releases flashes of gamma or xrays so magnetars only last briefly as magnetars, for around 10,000 years, before they drop back to being plain, old neutron stars. Indeed, there is now a suggestion now that many, if not all neutron stars may spend a small part of their lives as magnetars.

 

– Is there a cosmic gravitational wave background?

Well yes there is, although all we are really saying here is that the Universe contains a lot of background noise in the form of gravitational waves because the Universe is full of moving massive bodies that interact with each other. The real interest here is whether there is some kind of background hum associated with the Big Bang, which might then confirm (or otherwise) our speculations on the events in the very first second of the Universe, including our speculation about there having been early rapid inflation, which would have been a very dramatic and dynamic process and may have left the Universe still resonating with its impact.

 

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