What is a Magnetar?

About Magnetar:

• It is an exotic type of neutron star with the defining feature that it has an ultra-powerful magnetic field.
• The field is about 1,000 times stronger than a normal neutron star and about a trillion times stronger than the Earth’s.
• Apart from ultra-powerful magnetic fields, magnetars also release vast amounts of energy in the form of flares, X-rays and gamma-ray bursts.
• They are therefore associated with extreme events in the universe, making them perhaps the most bizarre objects in the cosmos next to black holes.
• The magnetic field of a magnetar may be caused by a neutron star’s interior – thought to be made up of neutrons, quarks and exotic states of matter such as Bose-Einstein Condensates – becoming a superconducting fluid.
• Thus, when the star rotates, it would behave like a huge dynamo, generating an immense magnetic field.

What is Messier 82?

• It is a galaxy nicknamed as "cigar galaxy" because when viewed edge-on it has an elongated and cigar-like shape. It is 12 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major.
• The M82 giant flare was the most distant known but not the most energetic. 
• A giant flare originates from a reconfiguration and a reconnection of the magnetic field of the magnetar.