Astronomers witness colossal supernova explosion create one of the most magnetic stars in the universe for the first time

Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron star or "magnetar" for the first time. The observation of this event, triggered by the death of a massive star, confirms the link between the creation of magnetars and super-bright supernova explosions. These superluminous supernovas can be as much as ten times brighter and last much longer than the typical supernova explosions that occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel and undergo gravitational collapse, or "core collapse," to birth neutron stars or black holes.

Almost since they were first discovered in the early 2000s, scientists have theorized that the birth of magnetars, which have the most powerful magnetic fields in the known universe, are connected to superluminous supernovas, but the smoking gun confirmation of this connection was missing.

"What's really exciting is that this is definitive evidence for a magnetar forming as the result of a superluminous supernova core collapse," team member Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley, said in a statement.