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Astronomers have, for the first time, observed the birth of a magnetar, an extremely magnetic, rapidly spinning type of neutron star. The breakthrough confirms that these exotic objects can power some of the brightest stellar explosions ever seen.
The discovery also validates a theory first proposed 16 years ago by a UC Berkeley physicist and reveals a newly recognized feature of certain exploding stars: a distinctive "chirp" in their light that can only be ex...
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