Characterized by its extremely powerful magnetic field, eruptive emission of X-rays and gamma rays, a magnetar is a neutron star that is about 1000 times stronger than a normal neutron star. The term magnetar comes from the fact that these stellar remnants are surrounded by intense magnetic fields about 100 million times stronger than any powerful magnet made by humans. If compare to earth’s magnetic field, it is about a trillion times stronger. Like other neutron stars, magnetars are around 20 kilometers in diameter with a mass about 1.4 solar masses.
Magnetars, short for “magnetic stars,” are ultra-dense corpses born from dead stars. Since it is a type of neutron stars, it is forged at the center of Supernova when a massive star explodes. An unknown process perhaps, ultrafast rotation within the dying star’s collapsing core endows each magnetar with a crushing magnetic field. It unleashes powerful flares spawned by the most extreme magnetic fields known.
What are the strongest magnets in the universe? For many, the answer to this question is easy – they would be found in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland or on board the International Space Station (ISS). But even those magnets pale in comparison to one of nature’s own creations – it’s called MAGNETAR, and it’s so powerful that it could wipe out the information from all of our hard drives and other electronics if it were located near Earth. But don’t worry – it’s definitely not anywhere near us!
However, it lacks a firm basis because magnetar formation still represents a theoretical challenge. It is not entirely clear what conditions cause a magnetar to be created instead of an ordinary neutron star or pulsar, but in order to achieve such strong magnetic fields, some theories suggest the neutron star must initially rotate between 100 and 1,000 times per second. Some neutron stars have such strong magnetic fields that they emit electromagnetic radiation from their poles. That makes them pulsars, and you can observe them with a telescope when their poles face the Earth. Only few pulsars can develop into extremely powerful magnetic field, the magnetars. They spin once every ten seconds, but it is much stronger than that of a neutron star.
Recent observations show magnetars cause the mysterious Fast Radio Burst signals that astronomers have detected for more than a decade. Lasting just a millisecond, these blasts shoot out as much energy in radio waves as the sun emits over a full 30 seconds. From these results, in the next few years or decade, Scientists can learn more about magnetars which leads to many other new discoveries. Currently, scientists have only discovered about 30 magnetars so far.
Although magnetars are incredibly powerful, they would lose the battle with a black hole. Depending on the trajectory of the magnetar, as well as the size and mass of both the magnetar and the black hole, the magnetic monster would be eaten up either whole, or slowly, piece by piece.
The most powerful magnet on Earth
If a magnet were created that could surpass what we currently consider to be an unbreakable magnet, it would be strong enough to drag you around if you stood close enough. How’s that for terrifying? At current levels of technology, such super-strength magnets are impossible—but there is one kind of star in our universe that has them beat by far. A neutron star is essentially a ball of neutrons (subatomic particles) with incredible magnetic fields. The strongest magnetic field ever recorded on Earth was measured at 60 teslas (T), but neutron stars can have fields up to 1000 T! To put that into perspective, if you took a million Earth magnets and smashed them together, they wouldn’t add up to 1/1000th of 1 T. So yeah, these things are crazy powerful. They’re also incredibly rare; only about 2% of all stars end their lives as neutron stars instead of black holes or white dwarfs.
