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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

CNet [cnet.com]:

A suite of space-based telescopes operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have discovered the youngest known magnetar to date. At just 240 years old, this extreme, cosmic infant could help astronomers understand how these dead, dense stars come to be and how they evolve.

In a study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Wednesday [iop.org], researcher describe Swift J1818.0-1607, a very young magnetar first spotted by NASA's Neil Gehrel's Swift Observatory on March 12 after it let out a mighty, explosive burst of X-rays. Magnetars are a rare kind of neutron star (the collapsed cores of huge stars) with extreme magnetic fields. They pack a huge amount of mass into a tiny space, which generates a huge amount of weird physical phenomena. Their magnetic fields can be up to 1,000 times stronger than your regular, run-of-the-mill neutron star.

The magnetar is 16,000 light years away from Earth.

Original Submission