“A gravity prison for the universe”
Can you imagine a magnet so powerful that it could wipe every credit card on Earth from a distance halfway to the moon? That is how strong the magnetic field of a magnetar is! A magnetar is an exotic type of neutron star, its defining feature that it has an ultra-powerful magnetic field.
The field is about 1,000 times stronger than a normal neutron star and about a trillion times stronger than the Earth’s Their magnetic fields ( Gauss) (unit of magnetic flux density or magnetic strength) are so strong they can distort atoms and would be fatal from thousands of kilometers away.
The magnetic field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays. They are born from supernova explosions of massive stars, but their intense magnetic activity lasts only about 10,000 years before decaying.
They are known as Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) due to their high-energy emissions. The intense magnetic field lines can twist and snap the neutron star’s crust, causing “starquakes” that release massive bursts of radiation.
The existence of magnetars was proposed in 1992 by Robert Duncan and Christopher Thompson. About 30 magnetars have been detected in the Milky Way and six more are being analyzed, but none are too close to Earth.
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