"Magnetar Power" --Chandra Observatory Captures Exotic Object With Magnetic Field a Million-Billion Times Earth's (Weekend Feature)
When stars more than thirty times bigger than our sun explode, they produce a type of young neutron star called a magnetar –the most magnetic stars in the universe, with gravity a billion times Earth’s and a magnetic field one-quadrillion times stronger than our Sun’s. A blast from magnetar could blow our atmosphere into space, leaving Earth a lifeless rock. Astronomer Phil Plait describes death by a magnetar should you venture too close as “the tides tearing you to pieces, the fierce heat vaporizing you, the magnetic field tearing your atoms apart, or the intense gravity crushi...