SPACE.com -- Discovery Puts New Spin on Universe's Most Powerful Magnets

SPACE.com -- Discovery Puts New Spin on Universe's Most Powerful Magnets: "Strange fast-spinning stars called magnetars get their names from the fact that they are the universe's most powerful magnets and unleash massive amounts of radiation. But now scientists have found that some magnetars can release mighty explosions without needing giant magnetic fields as previously thought.

Magnetars are a kind of pulsing neutron star (or pulsar) — a remnant of a star left over after a supernova, when a star's explosion crushed protons together with electrons into neutrons. They are a thousand times more magnetic than an ordinary neutron star and 10 trillion times more so than a refrigerator magnet."