Magnetar

[4][5] Over the following decade, the magnetar hypothesis became widely accepted, and was extended to explain anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs).

[2] Magnetars are differentiated from other neutron stars by having even stronger magnetic fields, and by rotating more slowly in comparison.

[8] Starquakes triggered on the surface of the magnetar disturb the magnetic field which encompasses it, often leading to extremely powerful gamma-ray flare emissions which have been recorded on Earth in 1979, 1998 and 2004.

[10][15] As described in the February 2003 Scientific American cover story, remarkable things happen within a magnetic field of magnetar strength.

[4] The dominant model of the strong fields of magnetars is that it results from a magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process in the turbulent, extremely dense conducting fluid that exists before the neutron star settles into its equilibrium configuration.

A similar magnetohydrodynamic dynamo process produces even more intense transient fields during coalescence of pairs of neutron stars.

[17] An alternative model is that they simply result from the collapse of stars with unusually strong magnetic fields.

[19] It is estimated that about one in ten supernova explosions results in a magnetar rather than a more standard neutron star or pulsar.

[20] On March 5, 1979, a few months after the successful dropping of landers into the atmosphere of Venus, the two uncrewed Soviet spaceprobes Venera 11 and 12, then in heliocentric orbit, were hit by a blast of gamma radiation at approximately 10:51 EST.

Given the speed of light and its detection by several widely dispersed spacecraft, the source of the gamma radiation could be triangulated to within an accuracy of approximately 2 arcseconds.

On February 21, 2008, it was announced that NASA and researchers at McGill University had discovered a neutron star with the properties of a radio pulsar which emitted some magnetically powered bursts, like a magnetar.

In 2018, the temporary result of the merger of two neutron stars was determined to be a hypermassive magnetar, which shortly collapsed into a black hole.