That by itself would be extremely interesting, but the article text is: “What happens inside a magnetar is a matter of pure speculation. Physicists think that

That by itself would be extremely interesting, but the article text is: “What happens inside a magnetar is a matter of pure speculation. Physicists think that the surface of a magnetar is covered in a shell of heavy atomic nuclei and free electrons. Because of the intense gravity [em. added], these surfaces are incredibly smooth; the highest "mountains" will only be a couple of centimeters tall. But don't think of them as trivial. If you were to fall off one of those mountains, by the time you reached the bottom, you would already be traveling at half the speed of light” Such a paragraph doesn’t give me confidence they did the math including magnetism, especially considering the extraordinary claim it would imply… that the magnetic field would have multiple orders of magnitude more strength than gravity. I think it doesn’t pass the sniff test, such immense downward force would instantly turn the neutron star into a black hole.