Neutron star Definition and 175 Threads

Hey! What would happen if you were orbiting a neutron star and shot a powerful laserbeam at the surface, at some angle? Would it reflect? Would it be absorbed? Thinking (if you picture the star as a perfect neutron star) that the surface is absolutley smooth, it would reflect light...

Homework Statement A neutron star has a mass of 2.0 x 1030 and a radius of 5.0 x 103. Suppose an object falls from rest near the surface of the star. How fast would it be moving after it had fallen a distance of 0.010 m? (Assume that the gravitational force is constant over the distance of the...

Hey all, I need a help to determine the Mass-Radius relationship for a neutron star. I've done it for a white dwarf, but for a neutron star I need to know the Neutron degeneracy pressure expression, can anyone please help me to solve it? I am thinking that if I have the n.deg.pressure...

Is there a simple-model equation for the radial density of a neutron star, from core to shell? I assume there have been models of fermionic gases, anyone have something onhand Is it a specific distribution? Linear? 1/r^2? I know its just a balancing of gravitational potential with strong...

The Chandrasekhar limit (~1.4 Msolar) is an upper limit to the mass a white dwarf star. So this means we can not have a white dwarf star in nature that weighs more than this. But is it true that we can have a neutron star that weighs less than 1.4 Msolar? If so, this makes no sense to me...

Homework Statement Neutron stars, such as the one at the center of the Crab Nebula, have about the same mass as our sun but a much smaller diameter. If you weigh 675 N on the earth, what would be your weight on the surface of a neutron star that has the same mass as our sun and a diameter...

Homework Statement Suppose the sun collapses into a neutron star. What will its radius be? The questions also gives some backround explaining that stars fuse hydrogen into helium until they collapse into a neutron star. The protons and electrons fuse into neutrons with the density of nuclear...

The question is: Suppose the sun collapses into a neutron star. What will its radius be? The question gave a brief backround explaining that stars are powered by nuclear reactions that fuse hydrogen and helium. When the hydrogen is used up the star collapses into a neutron star. The force of...

A neutron star has a mass five times that of Earth and a 10 KM radius. Find the distance from this star's surface a satellite must be at to stay in a circular orbit if the satellite is moving at 50000 km/min. First, I changed the 10 KM to meters and found the mass of this neutron star...

Does anyone know of a good reference regarding solving the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations for neutron stars? Most things I find are either too elementary and others skip multiple steps. I think the EoS to use should be that of a Fermi gas model, but I am not sure.

Is there anything in the observable universe that weighs more? 1 teaspoon = billion tons

neutrons are fermions, with half spin, as such the must not occupy the same quantum state (meaning the wave functions can't overlap - atleast not with a big probability density portion of each other). so, if neutron star is in the most dense state it can get, meaning its degenerate and every...

Nasa team has solved a great mystery:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/short_burst_oct5.html

press release from NRAO http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2005/fastpulsar/ The fastest-moving neutron star ever seen, clocked at 1100 kilometers per second, a speed that will take it out of the Milky Way galaxy, was given its initial "kick-off" by the supernova that formed it. journal article...

What does a neutron star "look" like Hi, I have some questions for a scifi story I'm working on. First, what would a neutron star look like? What color are they, and how bright do they tend to be? By look like, I mean both seen from a theortical planet surface orbiting one (or mabye it would...

[FONT=Arial Black]undefined what mass does a neutron star hove and what is its life span? and any other information on the subject would not go un-apiretiated

Came across this forum while searching the net for help. It's great to have a forum dedicated to physics. So hi to everyone :) Now to business. I'm stuck with this question. If you weigh 660N on the earth, what would you weigh on the surface of a neutron star that has the same...

There are no neutron stars within 1000s of light years that we know of but there could be chunks of one much closer. The speculation of a planet X in our solar system has been written about many times and some think the new found planetoid Sedna may be that object.However, a much smaller object...

Question: The radius of a neutron star is 750 times smaller than the Earth's radius, and its mass is 1.8 times larger than the Earth's mass. What is the escape velocity from the surface of a neutron star? (Ignore the fact that, at high speeds, one should not really use mv^2/2 for the kinetic...

I've heard this explained numerous times, most recently in my General Relativity course today, where he talked about how smaller stars will collapse into white dwarfs, while more massive ones will overcome the electron fermi gas pressure, effectively forcing the electrons into the protons, so...

What do members think of this: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0411163 ? Garth

What is the observational difference between a neutron star and a black hole? Is the evidence conclusive, or is it based on a strong reasonability argument?

Question--can a neutron star shed mass? Once the steller core of a massive star collapses into a neutron star, is there any known mechanism by which the neutron star can shed mass?

Okay, I am told to find the average density of a neutron star with the same mass of the sun but with a radius of only 20km. I figured this would be pretty simple so I just would divide the Sun's mass (found using Google) by the volume of the neutron star which would be (4/3)*pi*r^3 with r being...

I heard, somewhere, that an thimble full of a neutron star would weigh on Earth many thousands of elephants. Hmmm... I suppose that this is true. But I wonder this: With all of our advanced technologies, is it possible to form such high density matter, even a thimble full, in an Earth lab?