[blackhole]

Now this is some scary ****.

Highlights:

Magnetars are primarily characterised by their extremely powerful magnetic field, which can often reach the order of 10 gigateslas. These magnetic fields are millions of times stronger than any man-made magnet, and quadrillions of times more powerful than the field surrounding Earth.[6] As of today, they are the most magnetic objects ever detected in the universe.[5][7]

A magnetic field of 10 gigateslas is enormous. Earth has a geomagnetic field of 30-60 microteslas, and a neodymium based rare earth magnet has a field of about 1 tesla, with a magnetic energy density of 4.0 x 105 J/m3. A 10 gigatesla field, by contrast, has an energy density of 4.0 x 1025 J/m3, with an E/c2 mass density >104 times that of lead. The magnetic field of a magnetar would be lethal even at a distance of 1000 km, tearing tissues due to the diamagnetism of water.

As described in a 2003 Scientific American cover story, remarkable things happen within a magnetic field of magnetar strength:

X-ray photons readily split in two or merge together. Also, when entering the magnetic field, photons of polarized light change speed (and therefore wavelength). Since the field can prevent electrons from vibrating as they normally do in response to light, light waves can slip past electrons without losing energy. Empty space itself experiences vacuum birefringence, gaining the ability to split light into different polarizations (like an immaterial version of a calcite crystal).

The field also squeezes atoms into long cylinders. In a field of about 105 teslas atomic orbitals deform into cigar shapes. At 1010 teslas, a hydrogen atom becomes a spindle 200 times narrower than its normal diameter.

On March 5, 1979, a few months after the successful dropping of satellites into the atmosphere of Venus, the two Soviet spacecrafts that were then drifting through the solar system, were hit by a blast of gamma ray radiation at approximately 10:51 EST. This contact raised the radiation readings on both the probes from a normal 100 counts per second to over 200,000 counts a second, in only a fraction of a millisecond.

This extremely powerful blast of gamma ray radiation constituted the strongest wave of extra-solar gamma rays ever detected; it was over 100 times more intense than any known previous extra-solar burst.

[Kosh]

Based on the title I half expected this thread to be about a group of superheroes I never heard about.