An international team of scientists has found the strongest magnetic field in the universe. The induction of the field created on the surface of the GRO J1008-57 pulsar reaches one billion Tesla. This was announced in a press release on the Phys.org website.
The researchers studied the GRO J1008-57 X-ray pulsar, which was detected by the Insight-HXMT spacecraft during an outbreak in August 2017. Signs of cyclotron resonant scattering feature (CRSF) have been identified, which occurs when X-ray photons are scattered by plasma electrons in the presence of a strong magnetic field. According to scientists' calculations, the field corresponding to the observed CRSF is tens of millions of times stronger than can be achieved in laboratory conditions on Earth.
Neutron stars have the strongest magnetic fields in the universe. X-ray binary neutron stars are composed of a neutron star and an ordinary star. In this case, the neutron star attracts matter to itself, as a result of which an accretion disk forms around it. If the magnetic field is strong, accreted matter moves along magnetic lines to the surface of the neutron star, which generates X-rays.