EPISODE · Oct 7, 2019 · 46 MIN
45: Biggest Neutron Star Ever!
from syzygy · host Chris Stewart
Help us make Syzygy even better! Tell your friends and give us a review, or show your support on Patreon: patreon.com/syzygypodSyzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.On the web: syzygy.fm | Twitter: @syzygypodThings we talked about in this episode:The Nature Astronomy paperNASA’s site on neutron stars, pulsars and magnetarsVideo on white dwarf stars by KurzgesagtElectron degeneracyChandrasekhar and his LimitThe 100m Greenbank Radio ObservatoryDegenerate matterJocelyn Bell Burnell and LGM-1Neutron star limit, known as the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit
What this episode covers
Neutron stars are weird — big balls of super-dense, stupidly energetic, rapidly rotating nuclear splodge. They're stars that, after running out of fusion fuel, have collapsed beyond the Quantum Electron Squashing Limit (a real thing), and have entered the Quantum Neutron Squooshing Regime (also a real thing). But there's a limit to how big they can be ... and, in an amazing series of coincidences, astronomers have just found a neutron star so close to that limit, it makes us wonder if something weird's going on.
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45: Biggest Neutron Star Ever!
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