The newly identified neutron star has a unique atmosphere of carbon just centimetres thick.
But they didn't have to scoop a chunk of neutron degenerate matter from the surface of a real neutron star either.
The phase transition of two-flavor quark matter into strange matter in the interior of a neutron star is studied.
The neutron star was once a massive star itself, but has reached the end of its life and collapsed into a tiny stellar remnant just 15 km across.
And if the axis of rotation doesn't coincide with the line through the two hot spots, if the neutron star rotates, you're going to see X-ray pulsations.
Pulsars, neutron stars and quark stars are then created based on their mass.
"We're seeing the gas whipping around just outside the neutron star's surface," said XMM-Newton team member Edward Cackett of the University of Michigan.
In 1959, just 2 years after physicists worked out that explanation for superconductivity, some of them proposed that similar pairing may happen inside incredibly hot, hugely pressurized neutron stars.
You always lose your m, and so you find that the speed at which it reaches the neutron star M R M neutron star times G divided by R neutron star.
A neutron star is under a constant pressure battle: massive gravitational pressure squeezing the neutrons together, but a countering neutron degeneracy pressure pushing out.
In this model, the resulting implosion and ensuing explosion would blow off the outer envelope of the star and leave behind the core as a neutron star.
The white source near the center of the image is a dense, rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar, all that remains of a core-collapse supernova explosion.
Such "pulsar glitches" likely result from brief interactions between the neutron star's solid crust and superfluid interior.
Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beam of radiation.
Does a neutron star represent the ultimate in compression?
If the gravitational pressure overwhelmed the neutron degeneracy pressure, the neutron star would be crushed into a singularity, producing a black hole.
Analysis of the X-ray data shows that the point sources are associated with binary star systems that contain a neutron star or black hole that is pulling matter away from a normal star.
And whenever you make a measurement of the mass when it is a neutron star when you see the x-ray pulsations, you almost always find 4 that it is very close to 1.4 times the mass of the sun.
People who believe in astrology or aliens may look for hidden meaning in this model of a black hole sucking neutron stars into its maw.
And this really changed our whole concept of astronomy, the existence of these neutron star binaries.
However, you will never see pulsations, because a black hole has no surface, like a neutron star.
And since the inner part of the disk obviously can't orbit any closer than the neutron star's surface, these measurements give us a maximum size of the neutron star's diameter.
Is neutron star the final product of compression?
Now, two teams of physicists say they have more direct evidence for superfluidity in the heart of a neutron star.
During the radiation stars will develop in turn into main sequence stars, red giants, white dwarfs or neutron stars, etc.
When constrained within the laser trap, the atoms are bunched close together, mimicking the neutron degenerate pressure of a neutron star.
The Fermi gas is governed by quantum dynamics and held in place by the laser trap, allowing the group to simulate the conditions of the tightly packed neutrons inside a neutron star.
After the supernova, the leftover matter could either have collapsed into a black hole or an extremely dense neutron star.
Stars a little less than that mass are thought to collapse into what are called neutron stars — very dense, dead stars, but not quite so exotic and weird as black holes.
"We could look for evidence that neutron stars don't live very long in regions with a lot of dark matter," he says.
A spinning neutron star is tied to a mysterious tail — or so it seems.
If you were here, and you go back to infinity, you reach exactly that speed, so if you fall in from infinity that is exactly the speed at which you reach the neutron star.
The lithium-6 Fermi gas may not be as dense as the neutron degenerate matter of a neutron star, but the effects are simulated (albeit on a larger scale).
