Figure. The cycle life of stars
- Neutron stars are created when a star a few times the mass of our Sun runs out fuel. The outward pressure generated by fusion reduces rapidly, allowing gravity to pull the star in on itself and trigger a supernova, where the outer layers of a star’s atmosphere get blown into space.
- The remaining matter continues to collapse under gravity, forcing electrons and protons to be squashed together and become neutrons, and then squashing all the neutrons together. The neutron star will have less mass than its parent star (usually about 1.5 times the mass of the Sun), but this mass will be confined by gravity to a region of just 20 kilometres (12 miles) across!, leading to an incredibly, incredibly dense object
- A neutron star is a very small, super-dense star that is composed mostly of tightly packed neutrons. A rapidly spinning neutron star is known as a pulsar.
Figure. Neutron star formation
Figure. Size neutron stars compared to earth
and white dwarf
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