【#Tech24H】A type of stellar explosion ten times brighter than a typical supernova, observed in the night sky, originates from a magnetic star. When a massive star collapses, its core can be compressed into a neutron star, about 20 kilometers in diameter, possessing an extremely strong magnetic field. If this newborn neutron star rotates extremely fast and has an immensely powerful magnetic field, it becomes a magnetic star. The immense energy released as its rotation slows down can be injected into the exploding debris, dramatically increasing its brightness. Scientists focused their attention on supernova “2024afav”. This ultra-luminous supernova blossomed over a billion light-years away. Its central magnetic star is surrounded by a hot "debris disk" composed of the star’s residual material, and this disk is tilted. This tilted disk acts like an intermittent shutter, with a constantly changing occlusion pattern, causing alternating bright and dark signals observed from Earth with an accelerating rhythm. In other words, what we observe is not the magnetar itself flickering, but its light being intermittently revealed and hidden as it passes through this rotating, tilted “cosmic shutter”.