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What is a magnetar?
Neutron Stars and Pulsars
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The magnetar phenomenon is a highly energetic, short-lived phase in the lives of a small fraction of all known neutron stars. These “soft gamma repeaters,” as they are also known, are not the so-called gamma-ray bursts; rather, it may be possible that magnetars are what is left after a supernova in a very fast-spinning, high-mass star produces a gamma-ray burst. This hypothesis has yet to be confirmed, however.