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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."
Try going near an MRI machine with change in your pocket. I made that mistake once, and it was tugging hard at the coins from across the room. >1 tesla magnetic fields need to be treated with respect - people can get seriously hurt if anything metallic gets brought into the room - they can get ripped out of your hand or pocket and will fly straight down the central bore where the patient is. I've heard stories of people being killed when someone walked into an MRI room with a pair of scissors in their pocket.
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.
They explain it was detected by observing the effects the stars magnetic field has on charged particles. With a magnetic field of 10^15 gauss (vs 1-5 for the sun and the 10 - 50 for the Earth), it was mentioned that it won't just suck change out of your pocket, but rearrange the molecules in your body. Sounds like fun, 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.