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Astronomy

Twinkle, twinkle, neutron star

Nature volume 420, pages 31–33 (2002)Cite this article

Neutron stars, as the name suggests, are mostly made of neutrons. But the cores of these tiny, dense stellar leftovers might conceal new states of matter, including strange matter. The light from these stars holds the key.

Neutron stars, formed during the death throes of massive stars, are among the most exotic objects in the Universe. They are the size of a city but typically contain at least 40% more mass than our Sun. As a result, their core density is several times the density of an atomic nucleus. In principle, this means that neutron stars may be our only window on the properties of matter beyond nuclear density. But in practice, this window has been hard to open, because spectroscopic information — the cornerstone of astronomical data — is exceedingly difficult to obtain for neutron stars. As Cottam et al.1 report on page 51 of this issue, and as Sanwal et al.2 discuss in the Astrophysical Journal, this situation may be about to change.

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Figure 1: The structure of neutron stars.

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  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742-2421, Maryland, USA

    Cole Miller

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  1. Cole Miller
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Correspondence to Cole Miller.

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Miller, C. Twinkle, twinkle, neutron star. Nature 420, 31–33 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/420031a

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