What Lies Beneath? Magnetar Enigma Deepens
Submitted by chandra on Wed, 2010-10-13 20:55Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
Observations with NASA's Chandra, Swift, and Rossi X-ray observatories, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and ESA's XMM-Newton have revealed that a slowly rotating neutron star with a comparatively very weak surface magnetic field is giving off bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. This discovery may indicate the presence of an internal magnetic field much more intense than the surface magnetic field, with implications for how the most powerful magnets in the cosmos evolve.