Neutron Stars
A neutron star packs more than the Sun’s mass into a city-sized ball. A sugar cube of it would weigh like a mountain.
What’s going on
When a giant star runs out of fuel, its core collapses in a split second and its outer layers blast away in a supernova. What can remain is a neutron star about 20 kilometres across, holding up to about twice the Sun’s mass. Many spin many times a second and sweep beams of radio waves across space; we call them pulsars. A sugar cube of the matter would weigh about a billion tonnes on Earth.
Myth
Every star ends its life as a neutron star or a black hole.
Fact
Only massive stars do; the Sun will end as a white dwarf.
Learn more
NASA Imagine the Universe, “Neutron Stars and Pulsars”; NASA, NICER mission overview.
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