Sam Lander News Today

These may show how the stars crust deforms amid extreme magnetic fields.

NASA's NICER has observed the merging of multimillion-degree X-ray spots on the surface of a magnetar, a supermagnetized stellar core.

"NICER tracked how three bright, X-ray-emitting hot spots slowly wandered across the object's surface while also decreasing in size, providing the best look yet at this phenomenon."