THE mystery of what powers some of the universe’s strangest objects has deepened with the discovery that “magnetars” emit even more energy than previously thought.
Magnetars are a type of rotating neutron star, immensely dense objects only a few kilometres across. Neutron stars form from compacted debris left over when stars up to 40 times the size of the sun explode in a supernova.
Astrophysicists first noticed something unusual in 1981, when they became puzzled by the powerful bursts of low energy X-rays, visible light and infrared that some neutron stars emit as they rotate. Such pulses are usually powered…
