Discovery of A New Gamma Ray Burster Star

A team lead by Sabancı University astrophysicist Ersin Göğüş, with another SU astrophysicist, Yuki Kaneko, have discovered the seventh Soft Gamma Repeater (SGR) known to date, a magnetar the named  SGR J1833-0831 after its coordinates in the sky. The discovery was made on March 19, 2010 with NASA's SWIFT satellite.

Göğüş and colleagues measured the 7.56 s rotation period of the star within 6 hrs after the discovery, using another NASA observatory in orbit, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). Previously, the nature of only one other SGR was determined this rapidly, also by Göğüş et al. The team followed up by observing the position of SGR J1833-0831 by some of the world's leading optical, infra-red and radio telescopes. No activity was detected outside the X and gamma ray ranges.