When stars more than thirty times bigger than our sun explode, they produce a type of young neutron star called a magnetar –the most magnetic stars in the universe, with gravity a billion times Earth’s and a magnetic field one-quadrillion times stronger than our Sun’s. A blast from magnetar could blow our atmosphere into space, leaving Earth a lifeless rock. Astronomer Phil Plait describes death by a magnetar should you venture too close as “the tides tearing you to pieces, the fierce heat vaporizing you, the magnetic field tearing your atoms apart, or the intense gravity crushing you into a thin paste an atom high.”