Neutron stars: matter at the edge of collapse

Neutron stars: matter at the edge of collapse

What happens when a dying star crushes itself into a sphere so dense a sugar cube's worth would outweigh a mountain — and the extreme physics that governs these bizarre objects.

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Show notes

A single grain of neutron star sand weighs over five million tons due to extreme density.

Intense gravity warps space-time so severely that observers can see the back side of the star.

Conservation of angular momentum allows these twenty kilometer wide spheres to rotate seven hundred times per second.

Magnetar magnetic fields are strong enough to wipe every credit card on Earth from halfway to the moon.

Colliding neutron stars create heavy elements like gold and platinum through a process called rapid neutron capture.

The Pauli Exclusion Principle provides the subatomic pressure that prevents these massive stars from becoming black holes.

In this episode
  1. 01Intro1 min
  2. 02The Birth of a Dead Star2 min
  3. 03The Anatomy of Density3 min
  4. 04The Equation of State Mystery3 min
  5. 05The Brink of the Abyss2 min
  6. 06Outro1 min
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