Magnetars Super Magnets in the Sky

Super fact 75 : Magnetars are a type of neutron star with extremely powerful magnetic fields ranging from 10,000,000,000,000 Gauss to 1,000,000,000,000,000 Gauss. In comparison, Earth’s magnetic field varied from about 0.25 to 0.65 Gauss at the surface. In other words, the magnetar magnetic fields are from 20 or 40 Trillion times to 2 or 4 Quadrillion times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field at the surface.

A bluish neutron star surrounded by impressive looking fields | rs Super Magnets in the Sky
Magnetar – neutron star in deep space. For use with projects on science, research, and education. 3D illustration. Shutterstock Asset id: 1138434620 by Jurik Peter

The magnetic fields of magnetars are trillions of times stronger than the sun’s magnetic field, which is 1 Gauss on a quiet sun surface and 2,000 to 4,000 Gauss in sunspots. The magnetic field of an MRI’s machine is also incredibly strong (2,000 Gauss to 100,000 Gauss). It is thousands to over a hundred thousand times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field. That’s why you should not have metals around an MRI machine. However, the magnetic field of a magnetar is still hundreds of millions to tens of billions of times stronger than the magnetic field of an MRI machine, and the magnetic field is not confined to a small machine but surrounds a neutron star and stretches far out into space.

If you placed a magnetar halfway to the moon from Earth (a magnetar is around 12 miles in diameter), it would erase all the credit cards on Earth (see video below). If you get close to a Magnetar (1000 kilometers) cars and other metal would float up in the air and the atoms in yourbody would stretch into rods making organic chemistry impossible and kill you. If you placed a steel beam on the surface of a magnetar the magnetic field would pulverize it and destroy the atoms.

In 2004 a magnetar named SGR 1806-20 located 50,000 light years from our solar system (700 million times farther than the planet Jupiter) had a starquake disturbing the magnetic field and sending out a gamma burst that disrupted radio communication on Earth. I consider the existence of magnetars a super fact because the existence of these super magnetic monsters is shocking and not well known amongst the public, and yet their existence has been confirmed.

The picture shows a bright magnetar surrounded by a bluish gamma ray burst and it is all set to a background of stars.
On 27 December 2004, a burst of gamma rays from SGR 1806−20 passed through the Solar System (artist’s conception shown). The burst was so powerful that it had effects on Earth’s atmosphere, at a range of about 50,000 light-years. U Harvard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What Are Neutron Stars and Magnetars?

A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed core of a massive supergiant star. The collapse causes it to become super compact and relatively small by volume. As the name implies the atoms are crushed, and protons and electrons merge into neutrons, making the neutron star mostly neutrons. The typical diameter of a neutron star ranges from 10 to 25 km (6 to 15 miles) depending on its mass. Neutron star material is extremely dense.

A normal-sized matchbox containing neutron-star material would have a weight of approximately 3 billion tons, the same weight as a 0.5-cubic-kilometer chunk of the Earth (a cube with edges of about 800 meters) from Earth’s surface, or a very large mountain. In addition, the gravity on a neutron star is immense, about 100 billion to 200 billion times stronger than Earth’s gravity.

Magnetars are neutron stars with extremely powerful magnetic fields. They have the universe’s most powerful magnetic fields (trillions of times stronger than Earth’s) that power intense X-ray/gamma-ray bursts as its field decays, often seen as highly variable pulsars. They were first theorized in 1992 to explain Soft Gamma Repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs). As of July 2021, 24 magnetars have been confirmed. According to the video below 30 magnetars have been confirmed in the Milky Way. There might be 3,000 in our Galaxy.

At top there is some text stating “A neutron star is a dense core left behind after a massive star goes supernova and explodes. Though only about 10 to 20 miles (15 to 30 kilometers) wide, they can have three times the mass of our Sun, making them some of the densest objects in the universe, second only to black holes. A teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh 4 billion tons on Earth. There are several types of neutron stars.” : Below the text at the top there is a picture of a magnetar, a pulsar and a magnetar plus pulsar. The text for each picture says: Magnetar - A magnetar is a neutron star with a particularly strong magnetic field, about 1,000 times stronger than a normal neutron star. That's about a trillion times stronger than a normal neutron star. That's about a trillion times stronger than Earth's magnetic field and about 100 million times stronger than the most powerful magnets ever made by humans. Scientists have only discovered about 30 magnetars so far. Pulsar - Most of the roughly 3,000 known neutron stars ae pulsars, which emit twin beams of radiation from their magnetic poles. Those poles may not be precisely aligned with the neutron star's rotation axis, so as the neutron star spins, the beams sweep across the sky, like beams from a lighthouse. To observers on Earth, this can make it look as though the pulsar's light is pulsing on and off. Magnetar + Pulsar – there are about six known neutron stars that are both pulsars and magnetars. | Super Magnets in the Sky
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

Magnetar YouTube Video

Other extreme stellar objects

I wish all of you Happy Holidays and Happy New Year
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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

31 thoughts on “Magnetars Super Magnets in the Sky”

    1. Yes I think they are scary too, like black holes. Magnetic fields that can rip you apart like super strong stellar MRI machines. Lucklily they are rare. Out of the 300 billion stars in our Galaxy there is likely only 3,000. That is only 0.000001% of all stars.

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    1. Yes I can imagine a magnetar showing up in our solar system and getting close to earth and by the time you see can it as another small star in the sky (they are only 12 miles in diameter on average) your car is already floating around in the air. Then some people invent a nickel and iron shielded room and everyone is fighting to get inside as people are starting to be ripped apart by the magnetic field. Anyway, I am not good at writing movie scripts. Luckily these little monsters are extremely rare.

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    1. Yes the first idea of their existence was 1992 so unlike black hole they relatively recent discoveries. People don’t know about them yet. Thank you Robbie. I just had a St. Bernadus Christmas Ale this evening and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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  4. Wow what a star! Very interesting to know about this and that video was good. Those number facts were beyond imagining, and scary. But like they said, we’d be history before much of that happened here.

    Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas! 🙂

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  6. This article evokes a sense of awe mixed with quiet unease.
    Your comparisons make extreme facts surprisingly easy to grasp.
    Without exaggeration, the science feels both accessible and humbling.
    It’s a reminder of how fragile we are in a vast universe.

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    1. I don’t think most people have heard of magnetars. They are exotic stars and very small voume wise (everage 12 miles across) but extremely powerful with magnetic fields that are just crazy. Their existence is shocking but not well known. Thank you Pooja.

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  10. Thanks for the great post about pulsars and magnestars. One fairly recent discovery I found fascinating was that some pulsars have planetary systems. These systems are quite rare, but it’s believed that as many as 1% of pulsars have planets. It’s thought the planets might have formed from material in the original supergiant star’s expanding envelope.

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  11. Pingback: Neutron Stars Trillions of Times Denser than the Sun – Super Facts

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