Extreme object

SGR 1806-20

SGR 1806-20 is a magnetar 42 000 light-years away, turning once every 7.56 seconds.

A magnetar: a neutron star with the strongest magnetic field known. Its flare of 27 December 2004 was the brightest event ever seen from outside the Solar System, and it briefly stretched Earth's ionosphere.

Key facts

Kind

Magnetar

Distance

42 000 light-years

Turns once every

7.56 seconds

See it from here

Too faint for the eye; a telescope, or a long photograph, shows it.

How the map draws it

Drawn as a ring at its measured distance; a black hole has no shape to draw and a pulsar is far too small — the kind of thing, not this exact one · its blink is drawn at the rate it turns.