https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-life-cycle-of-a-star-from-birth-to-death When a star is at the end of its “life,” a few things can happen with its remnants. One of the possible outcomes for stars at least three times the size of our sun, Helios, is a neutron star. A neutron star is a compressed form of the previous large star. The star can compress down to about the size of a city or 20 km in diameter. There are also two special forms of neutron stars: Pulsars and Magnetars. Neutron stars are very dense remnants of the previous stars. When a star is at the end of its “life,” when all the fuel is iron or heavier elements, the gravitational force of the star becomes stronger than the fusion force pushing out. All the mass is brought to the core of the star, making the star more dense, and due to conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum the star spins at a significantly faster rate. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/new-phenom.html This is a neutron star spitting out a burst of energy as it slows down.

Previous Home Next