Interesting Facts about a Neutron Star
I did an earlier post of the Life Cycle of a Star. A neutron star is one possible final phase of a star. It is quite a fascinating object that I thought it deserves its own post.
- Neutron stars are unbelievably, incredibly dense. They have a mass about 1.5 times that of our Sun but with a diameter of about 12.5 miles!
- The density of the star has caused the protons and electrons to combine into neutrons, thus giving the stars their name. One teaspoon of its material would weigh over 5 million tons on Earth.
- The denseness also causes an amazing amount of gravity. The escape velocity from the surface of a neutron stay is about one third the speed of light.
- The massive gravity of the star warps light. If we could look at a neutron star, we would be able to see more than half of the star at a time as shown by the image.
- Neutron stars rotate very quickly, some up to several times per second.