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Space & Astronomy

Super-massive neutron star discovered

By T.K. Randall
October 31, 2010 · Comment icon 10 comments

Image Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Astronomers have discovered a super-massive neutron star with an incredibly high density.
The neutron star is twice the mass of the Sun but is smaller in size than the Earth, this means that only a thimbleful of material would weigh as much as 500 million tons.
The discovery of a super massive neutron star has thrown our understanding of stellar evolution into turmoil.


Source: Universe Today | Comments (10)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by Belial 14 years ago
It is certainly a super massive item, i wonder just how big could something get without falling in on it self?
Comment icon #2 Posted by thefinalfrontier 14 years ago
I dont think there is any size limit when it comes to super massive stars, See video, And thats only in our milkyway galaxy so I imagine theres even more massive stars out there,
Comment icon #3 Posted by Belial 14 years ago
Nice one.
Comment icon #4 Posted by Humblemun 14 years ago
New theory of gravity needed from Newton onwards imo. This finding supports the hypothesis of super dense exotic matter at the centre of the stars and planets imv.
Comment icon #5 Posted by pallidin 14 years ago
If you guys haven't already done so, the bottom of the article has a rather interesting discussion. Worth reading.
Comment icon #6 Posted by thefinalfrontier 14 years ago
If you guys haven't already done so, the bottom of the article has a rather interesting discussion. Worth reading. Thanks for pointing it out Pallidin, I will have to check it out a bit later,
Comment icon #7 Posted by MoonBaby 14 years ago
500 million tons? Really? How is that type of mass measured?
Comment icon #8 Posted by MID 14 years ago
500 million tons? Really? How is that type of mass measured? That's a really good question! The article states that a thimble full of this star material would have a mass of around 500,000,000 tons. In order to get that estimate, you need to know the mass of the star it comes from, and the size of the star as well. From that you can calculate the density of the matter, and then a mass for any given volume of it. Knowing the distance to a star is a huge help in finding out it's size. We determine the distance of a star by several methods, depending on how far away the object may be. Stellar par... [More]
Comment icon #9 Posted by danielost 14 years ago
I dont think there is any size limit when it comes to super massive stars, See video, And thats only in our milkyway galaxy so I imagine theres even more massive stars out there, i disagree with the last bit of the video. i am so the center of my universe.
Comment icon #10 Posted by UFreak 14 years ago
Maybe he meant at what "density" (not size), would a star (or mass) fall into itself. I thought this described "set density" (500 mil tons) was very close to that threshold -- of self-distruction....?


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