What is a Neutron Star?

In this article, let's find out why Neutron is and how it is formed!

Neutron stars

Neutron stars are a form of several end-to-end capabilities of the evolutionary process. A neutron star was formed from the remains of a massive star collapse following Type II or Type Ib supernova explosions.

Illustration of neutron star.(Photo: wiki).

The formation of neutron stars

In the life cycle of a star there is a balance between gravity and pressure: its gravity pulls matter inside and the pressure ejected by extremely high temperatures and light produced by reaction. Fusion applications burn hydrogen gas into Helium in its core. For a giant star, this process takes billions of years until there is no hydrogen left. At this time, the gravity dominated, the core would be compressed and heated up. This rise in temperature forms, the helium turns into heavier elements that temporarily prevent gravitational collapse.

Material is blown away in a supernova explosion.(Photo: wiki).

The cycles continue for millennia, with the star's core becoming hot and dense. In the inner regions of the core, a mass of iron ash begins to form. This is the end of the life cycle: iron cannot merge into heavier elements and cannot produce enough energy as before.

When the iron is large enough to accumulate in the core, it collapses quickly. Electrons and protons are "squeezed" together to form neutrons because the gravitational force is too large. These temporary but intense neutrons prevent collapse.

The outer layers of that star are blown away in supernova explosions, the most spectacular explosion of nature. The star's remaining core, about twenty kilometers and thick with neutrons, is called a neutron star.

Properties of neutron stars

A neutron star has a mass of at least 1.1 to 3 solar masses. The largest mass of a neutron star ever observed is 2.01 times the Sun. Typically, dense stars of less than 1.39 solar masses (Chandrasekhar limit) are white dwarfs, while a dense star with a mass of about 1.4 to 3 times the mass the sun (Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) will be a neutron star.

A dense star assuming a mass of 3 to 5 times the mass of the sun is called a quark and an electroquark star, but in fact they do not exist. With a mass of more than 10 solar masses, the supernova remnant of the star's supernova will exceed the threshold of pressure to degrade neutron matter and gravitational collapse to form a black hole, albeit in a small mass. most of a black hole ever studied is about 5 solar masses.

Illustration of starquake of neutron star by NASA.(Photo: wiki).

The temperature inside the neutron star only formed about 1011 to 1012 degrees Kelvin . However, the huge number of neutrinos it emits carries so much energy that the temperature of a neutron star is isolated in a few years to about 106 degrees Kelvin. With this temperature, most of the light generated by neutrons is in the X-ray region.

Neutron stars have an extremely large density in the range of 3.7 × 10 ¹⁷ −5.9 × 10 ¹ 7 kg / m ³ , folding (2.6 × 10 ¹⁴ - 4.1 × 10 ¹⁴ ) times the density of the Sun. Therefore the density of neutron stars is even greater than the limit of the atomic nucleus (3 × 10 ¹⁷ kg / m ³ ). A neutron star is so dense that a teaspoon (5ml) will have a mass of more than 5.5 × 10 ¹² kg, about 900 times the mass of the Giza pyramids. The pressure increases from 3 × 10 ³³ −1.6 × 10 ³⁵ Pa from the inner shell to the center.

On average, gravity on neutron stars is 2 billion times greater than gravity on Earth. In fact, it is powerful enough to significantly bend radiation from the star in a process known as gravitational lensing , allowing astronomers to see some of the backs of the star.