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Canadian Astronomers Discover a Magnetar
trotski writes "The Globe and Mail is running an article about the discovery of a magnetar star by Canadian astronomers. The star, named SGR 1806-20, is located 40,000 light-years from earth. This neutron star is one of only four magnetars ever discovered. Magnetars are characterized by their huge magnetic fields, billions of times stronger than any magnets on Earth. Apparently, if this star was located as far away as the moon, it could demag floppy disks and suck change right out of your pocket."
Having a star as close as the moon would probably be pretty warm, too.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Wow, imagine what it could do if coins were actually ferrous!
Uhh. last time i checked, pocket change isn't magnetic. Maybe you're confusing it with the washers you use to defeat the arcade machines? v
Worst. Sig. Ever.
And that makes me the perfect candidate to post here. Seriously though, one would think that a neutron star's magnetic field would extend well past the distance from the moon to the Earth.
If a star was about as far away as the moon, I think I'd worry about more than pocket change and floppy disks.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
Uhh- I don't believe that just because an item is non-ferrous, it is not susceptible to magnetic fields. I do believe that the more intense a magnetic field is, the more likely it is to affect a myriad of other 'non-ferrous' items.
and suck change right out of your pocket.
That would pretty hard since US coins are all made out of non-magnetic metals.
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
if this star was located as far away as the moon, it could demag floppy disks
Yet another reason I'm glad I stayed with paper tape.
-- MarkusQ
It could suck the paint off your house and give your family a permanent orange afro...
Maybe the star is Democratic, not magnetic. A Demostar. Then it could suck the change out of your pocket.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Please tell me I'm not the only one here who thinks this sounds like a villain out of an 80's cartoon. Maybe Space Ghost, or Transformers.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Apparently, if this star was located as far away as the moon, it could demag floppy disks and suck change right out of your pocket.
Yes, and if this star was located as far away from earth as the moon, we would also be dead.
and suck change right out of your pocket.
IRS does the same, but it's a little bit closer
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights
Apparently, if this star was located as far away as the moon, it could demag floppy disks and suck change right out of your pocket.
<SARCASM>
When this star was located as far away as the moon, losing the change in my pockets would be the least of my problems.
</SARCASM>
Sure it would be the end of history but it would be the biggest thing in Rock and Roll history. I think it's worth it.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
A concert at the end of the Universe? Wouldn't Disaster Area be a more appropriate act?
It could just as well suck the bills out of your pocket, and the dollars off of your paycheck before you even get it...
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
...Magnetar
The name sounds like a Pokemon, doesn't it?
It had been thought that SGRs are neutron stars with magnetic fields of ~1e14 Gauss (compared to the Crab's ~1e12 G or Earths ~1 G). This is a huge field that has enough energy (proportional to magnetic field squared) to power the huge blasts of radiation.
This new work by Samar Safi-Harb shows that the magnetic field is actually ~1e15 Gauss: 10x as strong and 100x the energy.
Hmmm... several million times warmer than Winnipeg... ok, so a median of 20C, check... sucks change out of your pocket... check.... erases data from great distances... check.
Ladies and gentleman, I have located the 5th Magnetar... the good ole US of A!
--
Laugh while you still have the right..
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
I ain't a physicist either an' ah don't spell too good but as I
recollect from here an there [maybe it was Babylon V],
a neutron dense substance is impervious to a magnetic
fields.
.
In order to permeate a region filled with a given mass, it
is necessary for the magnetic field to induce"domains"
in a paramagnetic substance,[like from the latin ('pro'
magnetic rah, rah, rah, etc)]
.
In all the tiny crystals of metals where the electronic shells
merge together & surge about like schools of tropical fish
in a coral garden we see them setting up counte magnetic
fields that essentially linkthe field[lenz' law] to the other
side in a process called [what else] "connection".
.
Magnetomotive Force= Flux * Spacial Impermiability
look it up its the Ohms' law of 'Magnetics'.
.
In a neutron star where the body is pure neutronium
[Babylon V rah rah rah} it is difficult to set up domains.
[hey if you know a way you'll make my day & the FBI
will confiscate your PC] See, because when neutrons
decay, positive & negative particles emerge in preservation of the "Conservation of Charge Law" n[0] =e[-] + p [+] but I never
heard of anyone getting a magnetic moment out of
pure neutroniun..
.
All you poor souls worryin' bout the neutron star singing your
pants don't worry about it its only a 'gedankenexperiment'
to see if you could follow an argument without being bogged
down in inconsequentials. Actually' all the star, is a burnt out
cinder , you know solar pheonix reactions h+C => N[13?]
etc Got no power. Further, graviton interaction with thermal
molecules would absorb heat until the planet shattered
to become confetti on the star's surface, but very cool.
.
Knowledge is power, don't expect to find anything substantial
on a page labeled nasa.gov. They got the power & you move
the boxes. uh oh I think I just lost my benny points
SPQR
.
If there are any nearby planets with heavier elements and some range of chemistry, perhaps they could support life forms that derive their principal source of energy from such the magnetar's field.
Those life forms would have a leg up on us in terms of interfacing with electronic equipment more naturally than we do.
OTOH, maybe they'd miss out on all the visible spectrum features we make use of for our eyeballs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If there are any nearby planets with heavier elements and some range of chemistry, perhaps they could support life forms that derive their principal source of energy from such the magnetar's field.
This is an interesting thought. However, in this case, they (and the planet) would likely be boiled to vapour by the x- and gamma-ray bursts that let us know about the star's magnetic field in the first place.
Magnetic effects around gas giants, while far, far weaker, might still be strong enough to play a role in the evolution of any creatures on/in gas giant moons, though.
For a couple of interesting sci-fi books about life in and around neutron stars, check out "The Integral Trees"/"The Smoke Ring", by Larry Niven, and "Dragon's Egg", by Robert Forward.
Is that true? Are they _that_ hot? That would be about 200,000,000 K, which is pretty damn toasty. How does it avoid being very bright, from black body radiation?
I though neutron stars were dark?
magneturd! And that it would suck the turds right out of my rectum!
The star -- one of only four stars known as magnetars -- is billions of times stronger than the most powerful magnets on Earth.
Well golly! Really?
A stellar object that has more power than something man-made? How could that be?
I mean, they're making this acessible to the man of the street, that's allright, but do they have to assume that the man on the street is that dumb?
You can't take the sky from me...
Request for information:
According to Biot-Savart's law, as well as coming directly out of Maxwell's equations and Ampiere's theorem, the strength of a magnetic field is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the conductor...
Or, in other words, magnetic field strength drops off as a square of the distance you travel away from it... so yes, it should weaken much when you walk away -- unless MRIs work in some drastically different way?
-T
Hmm, I never knew that neutrons were the raw building blocks of matter. Last I checked, they were just baryons (a class that also includes protons), and are themselves composed of constituent parts known as quarks (down and up quarks in this case).
This just goes to show the amount of science illiteracy that exists in our society. Even a journalist writing an article about a scientific discovery can't get basic concepts straight.
Like, a tard that attracts the short bus from as far away as the Moon?
"Well it certainly does suck..."
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
[insert canadian joke, eh?]