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."

Re:Magnetic Change

[PD]

That pocket change isn't pure metal either. In every nickel in your pocket, I wouldn't be surprised to find more than a trace amount of iron. A big magnetic field would attract that.

Magnetic Based Life Forms?

[4of12]

If there are any nearby planets with heavier elements and some range of chemistry, perhaps they could support life forms that derive their principal source of energy from such the magnetar's field.

Those life forms would have a leg up on us in terms of interfacing with electronic equipment more naturally than we do.

OTOH, maybe they'd miss out on all the visible spectrum features we make use of for our eyeballs.

Re:Plus,

[DrLudicrous]

10^15 gauss is 10^11 Tesla. An MRI magnet (which is about the size of a large closet) puts out about 1.5 Tesla. The largest MRI magnet being proposed for use on humans is 8 Tesla, at the Ohio State University. This is still over 10 billion times smaller than 10^11 Tesla.

Just out of curiousity, where does that 100 billion Tesla number come from? I don't recall it from the article.

Re:Clarification please? (was re: Magnetic Change)

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on the near field and the far field. It is the far field that falls off to inversely to the square of the distance. The near field size will depend on the size of the magnetic and the strength of the magnetic field.