The UNDEAD Cosmic Object, The Neutron Star

What is a Neutron Star ?

When a star dies, it has 3 possible fates that are mass-dependent, it either turns into a white dwarf star or goes supernova and has a possibility of becoming a blackh0le or a neutron star (there is a graphic below that goes into specifications and details). But what really is a neutron star, it is the collapsed core of the star, they are actually the smallest and most dense known object other than black holes. The supernova explosion accompanied by gravitational collapse causes the core of the star to get squeezed down further than a white dwarf. This means that a neutron star is the remains of a core of a dead star that collapses due to its own mass causing an inward gravitational pull. It is hard to imagine how much mass can be compressed into a neutron star, to give you a better vision, imagine around a 20 km sphere with a mass range of around 1.5-2 times the mass of the sun. When they form, they are unbelievably hot (1.8 million°F), but because they do not produce any heat, cool down slowly.

Fate of Stars, Source britannica.com

Three Types of Neutron Stars

The first type is a pulsar, a type of neutron star that produces beams of radiation from its poles. Since all neutron stars rotate rapidly, this beam may be seen as a pulse of on and off for us on Earth.  According to NASA, "Most neutron stars are observed as pulsars. Pulsars are rotating neutron stars observed to have pulses of radiation at very regular intervals that typically range from milliseconds to seconds. Pulsars have very strong magnetic fields which funnel jets of particles out along the two magnetic poles. These accelerated particles produce very powerful beams of light. Often, the magnetic field is not aligned with the spin axis, so those beams of particles and light are swept around as the star rotates. When the beam crosses our line-of-sight, we see a pulse – in other words, we see pulsars turn on and off as the beam sweeps over Earth. One way to think of a pulsar is like a lighthouse. At night, a lighthouse emits a beam of light that sweeps across the sky. Even though the light is constantly shining, you only see the beam when it is pointing directly in your direction."(https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/neutron_stars1.html #:~:text=Pulsars%20are%20rotating%20neutron%20stars,very%20powerful%20beams%20o f %20light.)

The second type is a magnetar, a magnetar does not have two intense beams of radiation, but instead has an unbelievably strong magnetic field (1000 stronger than Earth's). The strength of the magnetic field causes it to emit extremely high-energy electromagnetic radiation. The surface of a neutron star (or the crust) and its magnetic field are related to a change in one that directly affects the other. This means that the motion of crust can be explosive, in a magnetar this explosion is amplified unbelievably and it releases an insane amount of energy, an example of this is magnetar SGR 1806-20 emitted more energy in a tenth of a second than our sun has for the past 100,000 years. ( I WOULD LIKE TO STATE THAT ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS FROM NASA's WEBSITE, THANK YOU NASA :D)

Types of Neutron Stars, Source NASA

Magentar features, Source : NASA

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