Magnetars are even more mindblowing than blackholes, in my opinion.<p>Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Magnetars, to blow <i>your</i> mind as well:<p><i>"X-ray photons readily split in two or merge. The vacuum itself is polarized, becoming strongly birefringent, like a calcite crystal. Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum-relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron." In a field of about 10^5 Tesla atomic orbitals deform into rod shapes. At 10^10 Tesla, a hydrogen atom becomes a spindle 200 times narrower than its normal diameter.</i>, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar</a><p>Edit:<p><i>"Die Massendichte, die einem derartigen Magnetfeld über seine Energiedichte in Kombination mit der Äquivalenz von Masse und Energie gemäß E = m c^2 zugeordnet werden kann, liegt im Bereich einiger Dutzend Kilogramm pro Kubikmillimeter (kg/mm3)"</i>, from german Wikipedia, <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Entstehung" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar#Entstehung</a><p>says that the mass density (via energy-mass equivalence) of such strong magnetic fields might be dozens of kilograms per cubic millimeter (kg/mm^3).<p><i>Mind. Blown.</i>
“a significance level of > 20σ”<p>Insane! Clearly that doesn’t include the uncertainty in our understanding of physics or neutron stars.<p>Edit: I tried to work out the % that 20σ is, but it is so mind bogglingly small that there should be a law against using such an insane number in any serious context.
This is almost certainly not the strongest in the uninverse based on the sample size of our observations right?<p>This is the strongest we have observed. Still really fascinating.
I assumed it'd be on earth like the hottest temperature in the Universe.<p>> which is tens of millions of times stronger than what can be generated in Earth laboratories.<p>How hard is this to achieve? Billion $ or impossible?<p>Not sure, but Wiki says labs get higher?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_field)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_...</a>
Sort of related—Tom Scott did a survey to determine “The Best Thing”: <a href="https://youtu.be/ALy6e7GbDRQ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ALy6e7GbDRQ</a><p>The second runner up is the Earth’s magnetic field.<p>He makes fun of his audience for ranking it that high, but planetary magnetic fields are no joke.
Let's not forget that this neutron star is measured at 5.8 kiloparsec distance from earth which is 18,917.1 light years.<p>Even if observable electromagnetic radiation was traveling at the speed of light, which most is not, we are looking at ancient history, because once this EM reaches earth we are studying phenomena that occurred >189 centuries ago.<p>We don't have a way to know if this star is even still there.<p>Everything studied in astronomy at significant light years distance is ancient phenomena, we are just seeing it/sensing it/evaluating it now.