Question: what is a magnetar and how strong is it

title: Magnetar
text: As described in the February 2003 Scientific American cover story , remarkable things happen within a magnetic field of magnetar strength . `` X-ray photons readily split in two or merge together . The vacuum itself is polarized , becoming strongly birefringent , like a calcite crystal . Atoms are deformed into long cylinders thinner than the quantum - relativistic de Broglie wavelength of an electron . '' In a field of about 10 teslas atomic orbitals deform into rod shapes . At 10 teslas , a hydrogen atom becomes a spindle 200 times narrower than its normal diameter . Origins