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 Artist conception of a Magnetar, Credit Quanta Magazine Astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at the top of the Maunakea volcano, have detected a new type of star that may one day become an extremely rare, neutron star with a gargantuan magnetic field, called a Magnetar. The star was discovered by Tomer Shanar at the University of Amsterdam who used the telescope to measure the already high magnetic field of this star. What is particularly interesting, is that the star is only 2 solar masses ( 2 x bigger than our Sun) and was considered far too small to have such a large magnetic field. It was measured to have a magnetic field 100,000 times stronger than Earth's field. In addition, the star is rich in helium, suggesting it is nearing the end of its life as fusion of its hydrogen converts to helium. Researchers believe this star has the right mass and magnetic field such that it will explode as a supernova when its hydrogen fuel is depleted and is fully converted to helium. At this point, the star will undergo a massive explosion, followed by massive gravitational implosion or collapse, one so large that the protons and electrons of the nuclei in the Helium atoms become fused together to form neutrons. This creates a neutron star, considered to be the densest form of matter in the Universe. As a comparison, the size of the current star (2 x the size of our Sun) would be compressed into a mass only 13 km wide. During this implosion process, the star's rate of spin increases at an enormous rate as its mass follows conservation of angular momentum. This can be compared to a spinning figure skater that increases spin when the skater's arms are pulled in towards the centre). This same effect on the dense, collapsing, massive star will magnify the spin and increase the already large magnetic field by an estimated 10 Billion times, thus creating an unimaginably large magnetic field, and a new type of star called a Magnetar.  Artist conception of Magnetar, Credit AAS Nova Information source is Astronomy Magazine, December 2023, Randall Hyman
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