NEUTRON STARS

FACTS

• Mass is 1.5 times that of the sun
• Diameter of 12.5 miles
• A sugar cube of its matter would weigh 100 million tons
• There are only about 1000 pulsars
• Pulsars=jets of material that stream out of these stars near the speed of light

HOW THEY HAPPEN

• Start with a star up to 8 times as massive as the sun
• Throw in a violent supernova
• Blow off the outer layers of the star and leave behind a small, dense core
• Add in some gravity to squish the electrons and protons together to form..
• Neutrons! That's where the name comes from.

MORE FACTS

• Can spin as fast as 43,000 times per minute, but it slows over time
• Pack 500,000 times the Earth's mass into a 12.4mi wide sphere
• They are city-sized
• Gravity on a neutron star is 2 billion times the strength of gravity on earth

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Nodwb0vTU