Neutron Stars: Crash Course Astronomy #32
In the aftermath of a 8 – 20 solar mass star's demise we find a weird little object known as a neutron star. Neutrons stars are incredibly dense, spin rapidly, and have very strong magnetic...
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When an 8 – 20 solar mass star ends its life, it does so with a bang: a supernova.And when it’s all over, there’s a couple of octillion tons of superheated plasma expandingaway from the explosion site at a fraction of the speed of light, a whole mess of energyreleased in the form of light and neutrinos, and a bizarre little ball of quantum nastinessin the center composed almost entirely of neutrons.The properties of this neutron star are almost as bizarre as things get in the Universe.And if it all seems rather alien to you, well, that’s OK. For a little while, astronomerswondered if aliens really were behind what they were seeing.Now I’m not sayin’ aliens.When we last left the core of a high mass star, it was in a bad way: Milliseconds agoit was fusing si...
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When an 8 – 20 solar mass star ends its life, it does so with a bang: a supernova.And when it’s all over, there’s a couple of octillion tons of superheated plasma expandingaway from the explosion site at a fraction of the speed of light, a whole mess of energyreleased in the form of light and neutrinos, and a bizarre little ball of quantum nastinessin the center composed almost entirely of neutrons.The properties of this neutron star are almost as bizarre as things get in the Universe.And if it all seems rather alien to you, well, that’s OK. For a little while, astronomerswondered if aliens really were behind what they were seeing.Now I’m not sayin’ aliens.When we last left the core of a high mass star, it was in a bad way: Milliseconds agoit was fusing si...
