Ghostly Ring Found Circling Dead Star

Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of scientists has found a strange ring around a dead star by using images taken by NASA's Spitzer space telescope. This star, called SGR 1900+14, belongs to a class of objects known as magnetars. According to NASA, a magnetar is 'a highly magnetized neutron star and the remnant of a brilliant supernova explosion signaling the death throes of a massive star.' So far, about a dozen magnetars have been found. An amazing thing about these stellar objects is their magnetic field. One of the researchers said that 'magnetars possess magnetic fields a million billion times stronger than the magnetic field of the Earth.'

Comments

Re:The ring

[dfm3]

Do not RTFA! For the love of God DO NOT RTFA! I wouldn't be so worried about that. This is Slashdot, after all...

Re:Pssst!

[pablomme]

Only if by "all over the world" you mean English-speaking countries and Brazil. Citing Wikipedia,

Most countries and languages in the world use the traditional long scale somewhat in contrast with your statement.