Neutron Star (Pulsar)

A Neutron star [Pulsar] is the collapsed inner core of a star that has lost more than half of its mass in a nova explosion. The density of the neutron star is the density of the atomic nucleus.

The original star that forms both the expanding nebula and the neutron star, has a mass of 5-10 times the mass of the Sun. A typical neutron star has a mass of up to four solar masses packed into a radius of less than10 km, spinning with a period of milliseconds. If the mass is above four times the mass of the Sun the neutron star will collapse to a black hole.

Matter crashing into the surface can have speeds as high as one third of the speed of light! X-ray emission from the area surrounding the Crab pulsar (Right).

> More