For a long, long time – we thought of a Black Hole as the most powerful object in the space. But a Black Hole is relatively safe if you are not inside its event horizon. Another thing that freaked people out was the Supernova, the colossal explosion of an old star, that could vaporize entire life on Earth in an instant. But a Supernova is considered safe as long as it is more than a 100 light years away.
Come to think of it, scientists have discovered a new type of star that is much more dangerous and terrifying – Magnetars. And it has the potential to wipe us out from 10,000 light years.
Magnetars are the most powerful objects in the universe
Magnetars are usually just 20 km in diameter, but their mass is 3 times that of the Sun.
One teaspoon of a Magnetar material can weigh about a billion tons.
After a star explodes into a Supernova, it turns into a Neutron Star. Neutron Stars are usually calm, just big balls of neutrons spinning really fast on their axis. Magnetars are super versions of your basic Neutron Stars, they pack a lot more matter inside, they spin much much faster, and they are a trillion times more magnetic than the Neutron Stars.
So what makes the Magnetars the most powerful objects in the universe?
A Magnetar can release as much energy in one second that a typical star releases in 1 million years!
Magnetic field of Earth is 0.6 Gauss, Magnetar? 1 Quadrillion Gauss!
Magnetars are biggest spinning magnets to ever exist. Compare the Magnetar with following magnets:
- Earth = 0.6 Gauss
- A common magnet = 100 Gauss
- Sun = 3,000 Gauss
- MRI machines = 70,000 Gauss
- The strongest magnetic field produced bu hymans = 450,000 Gauss
- Typical neutron stars = 1 Trillion Gauss
- Magnetars = 1 Quadrillion Gauss
What if a Magnetar came close to Earth?
If a Magnetar were to fly into our solar system and then come close to Earth, we will begin to feel its presence when it was half the moon’s distance away from us. From that distance it could wipe out our credit cards, memory chips, and cause severe malfunctions in the electric wires. It would mess up the Earth’s magnetic field and cause disasters that we cannot even begin to imagine.
Be pretty sure that we’re gonna be baked.
If you go as close as 1000 kms near a Magnetar, its magnetic power would stretch your atoms into thin needles, your whole body would disintegrate and just disappear into dust. And yes, you won’t feel so good.
A 10,000 light years long arm of death
Stars usually have thing called a Starquake, which is quite similar to how we get earthquakes here. Star’s crust cracks and then it releases a massive burst of energy into space. In one second a Magnetar can release as much as energy that Sun can’t create in a million years!
If a Magnetar even 50,000 light years away went through a Starquake, then it would release enough energy that will ionize our atmosphere and compress the magnetic field of Earth.
Usually, the upper atmosphere getting ionized is good since it helps keep harmful radiation at bay.
But if the same Magnetar was 10,000 light years away then the entire air will be ionized to the extreme, ionized gases would start reacting with material and before we know it – the whole air will be on fire. It will destroy the ozone layer first and then wipe out the Earth’s surface, turning everything into ash.
What are the chances?
The Starquake of a Magnetar would not even take a second to destroy all of us, it will all happen within a blink of an eye. So far, we don’t even know how many Magnetars are there in our neighbourhood. Only ray of hope is that Magnetar don’t live longer than 10,000 years, because soon they lose their energy and turn into Neutron Stars.
Come to think of it, we live on a ball of dust that is hanging in a dark void, with nothing but a thin layer of air separating us from the cold, unforgiving emptiness. And literally anything happening so far away in the space can wipe us out like we never existed.
Take a moment to look at this picture of Earth
That pale blue dot in the picture is our world, as captured by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990. Carl Sagan commented on this picture:
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Featured Image Courtesy: ArtStation
Makes me think what a load of bollocks and if there is any truth in this story – it does not matter because we’ll all be dead