WASHINGTON—Magnetars are among the universe’s most extreme objects—a class of the compact stellar remnants called neutron stars that possess immensely strong magnetic fields. Once in a while, they produce enormous eruptions of gamma rays in the strongest nondestructive release of energy known in the cosmos.
Scientists have now detected the most distant-known instance of one of these eruptions, called a giant flare, from a magnetar residing in a galaxy called Messier 82, or M82. This surge of gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, unleashed in just a tenth of a second the amount of energy our sun would emit in a span of roughly 10,000 years, they said....
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