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Neutron Stars : A Neutron Star

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Neutron stars are “an incredibly object made of neutron’s, like a giant atomic nucleus.” In the year 1934 two astronomers at CIT made predictions that a collapse of a large star or sun would produce a neutron star. When a star 's mass exceeds roughly 1.4M and has a iron core. It is no longer able to support itself, the core collapse from exponential forces. This is referred to as a type ii supernova or a core-collapse supernova. These newly discovered neutron stars had notable characteristics. A smaller radius of around six miles and masses that were on average between “one and several times the sun”. Neutron stars also had capacity for how large their masses could be, at max it could be two to three solar masses. Although these neutron …show more content…

They inferred that since the star was originally much larger and its mass stayed the same throughout its transition into a neutron star, that its rotation must have increased when its size decreased. Naturally known as conservation of angular momentum. These rapidly spinning neutron stars would look to be pulsing because of the strong magnetic field that emits radiation in the form of two narrow beams. As the neutron star spun it would only send a signal every time its rotation pointed the narrow beam at earth. The magnetic field of a neutron star rip’s both “positively and negatively charged particles off the star’s surface and accelerate them to nearly the speed of light.” These charged particles radiate as they accelerate. The radiation is in the form of electromagnetic energy that can be in various wavelengths. The amount of energy that a neutron star gives off dictates what type electromagnetic wave it will produce. A higher charged neutron star will give off a shorter wavelength. Astronomers at earth are able to take any type of wavelength produced and measure it. The main reason this is possible is solely because the neutron star guides the charges given off in a tight cone shape that it is easily picked up when facing earth. These beams are sometimes so powerful (usually when it is a young

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