neutron star, extremely small, extremely dense star, about double the sun's mass but only a few kilometers in radius, in the final stage of stellar evolution stellar evolution, life history of a star , beginning with its condensation out of the interstellar gas (see interstellar matter ) and ending, sometimes catastrophically, when the star has exhausted its nuclear fuel or can no longer adjust itself to a stable
..... Click the link for more information. . Astronomers Baade Baade, Walter (väl`tər bä`də), 1893–1960, German-born American astronomer.
..... Click the link for more information. and Zwicky Zwicky, Fritz (tsvĭk`ē), 1898–1974, Swiss-American astrophysicist, b. Bulgaria, educated at Zürich.
..... Click the link for more information. predicted the existence of neutron stars in 1933. In the central core of a neutron star there are no stable atoms or nuclei; only elementary particles elementary particles, the most basic physical constituents of the universe.

Basic Constituents of Matter

Molecules are built up from the atom , which is the basic unit of any chemical element .
..... Click the link for more information. can survive the extreme conditions of pressure and temperature. Surrounding the core is a fluid composed primarily of neutrons neutron, uncharged elementary particle of slightly greater mass than the proton . It was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932. The stable isotopes of all elements except hydrogen and helium contain a number of neutrons equal to or greater than the number of protons.
..... Click the link for more information. squeezed in close contact. The fluid is encased in a rigid crystalline crust a few hundred meters thick. The outer gaseous atmosphere is probably only a few centimeters thick. The neutron star resembles a single giant nucleus nucleus, in physics, the extremely dense central core of an atom .

The Nature of the Nucleus

Composition

Atomic nuclei are composed of two types of particles, protons and neutrons, which are collectively known as nucleons.
..... Click the link for more information. because the density everywhere except in the outer shell is as high as the density in the nuclei of ordinary matter. There is observational evidence of the existence of several classes of neutron stars: pulsars pulsar, in astronomy, a neutron star that emits brief, sharp pulses of energy instead of the steady radiation associated with other natural sources. The study of pulsars began when Antony Hewish and his students at Cambridge Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. are periodic sources of radio frequency, X ray, or gamma ray radiation that fluctuate in intensity and are considered to be rotating neutron stars. A neutron star may also be the smaller of the two components in an X-ray binary star.

neutron star

Any of a class of extremely dense, compact stars thought to be composed mainly of neutrons with a thin outer atmosphere of primarily iron atoms and electrons and protons. Though typically about 12 mi (20 km) in diameter, they have a mass roughly twice the Sun's and thus extremely high densities (about 100 trillion times that of water). Neutron stars have very strong magnetic fields. A solid surface differentiates them from black holes. Below the surface, the pressure is much too high for individual atoms to exist; protons and electrons are compacted together into neutrons. The discovery of pulsars in 1967 provided the first evidence of the existence of neutron stars, predicted in the early 1930s and believed by most investigators to be formed in supernova explosions. See also white dwarf star.

neutron star [′nü‚trän ‚stär]

(astronomy)

A star that is supposed to occur in the final stage of stellar evolution; it consists of a superdense mass mainly of neutrons, and has a strong gravitational attraction from which only neutrinos and high-energy photons could escape so that the star is invisible.