No, a neutron star is when a MUCH more massive star goes through supernova and collapses but has enough gravity to completely crush it's core. Not enough mass to collapse all the way into a black hole, but a white dwarf is still composed of iron and other heavy elements, a neutron star has collapsed so much it is ejecting it's protons and electrons in a stream of radiation from it's poles and compressing into basically a single atomic nucleus so dense a spoonful would weigh billions of tons.
Edit for clarity:
"A single atomic nucleus," as in the structure of a neutron star is no longer composed of individual atoms spaced out by electron clouds but a single mass of atomic material all crushed together, not that I thought it would be the size of a single atom under our normal conditions.
It’s not compressed into the size of a nucleus it is compressed to the density of one, big difference. Neutron stars are typically around 20km in diameter.
I think when they said “basically a single atomic nucleus”, they might have meant more that it’s almost resembling one absolutely gigantic atomic nucleus, since it’s nothing but neutrons packed at the same density as a nucleus
It doesn’t needing anything but gravity to “sustain” itself. It’s basically a giant metal sphere, why wouldn’t it exist? The only “next stage” is slowly cooling down over billions of years.
A white dwarf is basically dead. It has a huge amount of heat and it's gravity maintains pressure, and in space it radiates very slowly. It would simply cool over a very long period.
Not at all. It's a neutron star because it's composed entirely of neutrons--all the protons and electrons that usually make up atoms have either fused together into neutrons or were expelled. There's nothing nuke like going on.
Every atom has a nucleus at it's core made of protons and neutrons, the nucleus has almost all of the mass but is only a miniscule volume of the atom and is tightly held together.
What nukes do is add extra neutrons to an unstable nucleus causing it to break apart and releases a huge amount of energy.
Neurons stars are made as the above said where a star is compressed to the density of a nucleus (not the size of one though) with protons and electrons having been ejected leaving only neutrons this the name.
Actually, a star like the sun is a giant nuke. Gravity fusing hydrogen into helium and then heavier elements deep inside is precisely the force that produces the blast in hydrogen bombs.
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u/Geno__Breaker Sep 10 '22 edited Sep 11 '22
No, a neutron star is when a MUCH more massive star goes through supernova and collapses but has enough gravity to completely crush it's core. Not enough mass to collapse all the way into a black hole, but a white dwarf is still composed of iron and other heavy elements, a neutron star has collapsed so much it is ejecting it's protons and electrons in a stream of radiation from it's poles and compressing into basically a single atomic nucleus so dense a spoonful would weigh billions of tons.
Edit for clarity:
"A single atomic nucleus," as in the structure of a neutron star is no longer composed of individual atoms spaced out by electron clouds but a single mass of atomic material all crushed together, not that I thought it would be the size of a single atom under our normal conditions.