Neutron Star Facts

If you have been wondering what is a Neutron star you have landed on the right page. Neutron stars are the end-stages of high mass stars, formed from their collapse, under the crunch of their own phenomenal gravity! They are some of the densest objects in the universe, made almost entirely of neutrons! Every one of the neutron star facts is mind-boggling, as you will discover browsing through this article! So let us begin with our amazing neutron facts. Be ready to be amazed!

Interesting Facts About Neutron Stars
All the neutron star information presented here is based on authentic research findings. None of this is fabricated. As you read about neutron stars, you will be convinced that sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction! Let us start with neutron star formation facts.

Formation
Here are some facts about its tumultuous birth from the death of a star.

• Neutron stars are formed from violent explosions called supernovas triggered by gravitational collapse of massive stars, which have run out of fuel. The core of the massive star is compressed by intense gravitational pressure which results into a highly dense neutron star.
• Just as a ballerina rotates faster as she wraps her hands around her body, the neutron star, rotates very fast as its radius is reduced by gravitational compression. This happens due to conservation of angular momentum.
• Neutron stars are some of the most compact objects in the universe and due to compression, their surface gravity is phenomenally high, that is about 10¹¹ times that of earth! An object falling towards neutron star surface will be accelerated at about 10¹²m/s² which will shred and rip it out into constituent atoms! To escape from a neutron star's surface gravity, one would have to travel at a velocity of 100,000 km/s, that is about one third of the speed of light.
• For a massive star to become a neutron star, its mass should be greater than 8 times the solar mass but lesser than 20 to 30 times, the mass of our Sun, when it runs out of fuel. If the star is greater than 30 solar masses, it becomes a black hole.

Properties
Here are some facts about density and the life of a neutron star.

• By now, you must be feeling fortunate not to have a neutron star around! Then listen to this. The neutron stars are so dense that a spoonful of neutron star will weigh more than a mountain! A teaspoon of a neutron star could weigh as much as 5 x 10¹²kg. A neutron star could be as small as the size of a city on earth, say Chicago, but weigh more than the Sun!
• Neutron stars have very high magnetic fields. The measured magnetic fields are the order of 10¹² Gauss, which is about 10¹³ times our Earth's magnetic field!

Structure
The structure of a neutron star is nothing like any other object in the universe. Here are some facts about its dense and exotic structure.

• The surface of a neutron star, at a temperature of about 1 million Kelvin, is made up of atomic nuclei of mostly iron, which are solidified in the form of a dense lattice!
• The atmosphere is 1 meter thick and totally dominated by the intense magnetic field of the order of 10¹² Gauss.
• As you go deeper and deeper, density of the star increases and the core is populated by nuclei of high neutron numbers. The central core is supposed to be a superconducting fluid of protons and electrons!

Discovery
Here are some interesting neutron facts about their discovery.

• Neutron stars were first hypothesized right after the discovery of neutron, in 1933, by Walter Baade and Fritz Zwicky, to explain the triggering of a supernova.
• In 1965, Antony Hewish and Samuel Okoye first discovered an object emitting radiation in radio waves, in the Crab Nebula, in the Orion constellation.
• After intense research, it was confirmed to be a neutron star and later a rotating neuron star, called a pulsar.

Neutron stars in the form of pulsars are a subject of intense research today. The various phenomena associated with pulsar magnetic fields and pulsar dynamics, as a part of a binary system are hot topics of study.