A sugar cube of this star weighs a billion tons
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A neutron star is only about 20 km across, roughly the size of a city, yet it has more mass than the Sun. It is what is left when a giant star dies and its core collapses, squeezing everything incredibly tight. One sugar cube of its material would weigh about a billion tons on Earth, about as much as a mountain.
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Transcript
- Tiggy This star is only as wide as a city.
- Tiggy But it's heavier than the Sun.
- Sef That little thing? I could carry it home!
- Tiggy Good luck. It's a neutron star.
- Tiggy When a giant star dies, its core collapses.
- Tiggy It gets squished super tight.
- Sef Fine. Just a sugar cube of it, then!
- Tiggy On Earth, that cube would weigh about a billion tons.
- Tiggy As heavy as a mountain.
Sources
- NASA Goddard (Imagine the Universe): Neutron Stars imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov
- NASA Science: Neutron Stars Are Weird! science.nasa.gov
- ESA: What is a neutron star? esa.int
- Chandra X-ray Observatory: Science by the numbers chandra.si.edu
- Penn State: Super-dense star is first ever found suddenly slowing its spin psu.edu
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