The gravity is so strong during the collapse that the electrons are converted into something else - neutrons - to fulfill the exclusion principle. The mechanism appears to break the exclusion principle (the brainchild of Wolfgang Pauli, the same Austrian physicist who hypothesised the existence of the neutrino) that states that electrons can’t be forced into a tighter space than their orbits.ĭuring the star’s demise, the core – now composed of iron nuclei – collapses in about one tenth of a second. This ignites a chain reaction, where individual electrons are effectively pushed into the protons, converting them into uncharged neutrons. Immediately after a star goes supernova, gravity begins to take individual atoms of matter together and compress them. As the name suggests, they are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which transform through a process we call 'degeneracy.' How Neutron Stars Form Neutron stars are the tiny - but incredibly dense - remnants that are left behind after such a collapse. These stars are formed from the gravitational collapse following the death of a massive star.

They can be regarded as the objects that 'didn't quite make it' to becoming a black hole. That's because these phenomena are written about extensively however, there are a number of wonders in our universe that, for one reason or another, don't get discussed. Today, the nature of certain cosmic phenomena (like stars are supernova blasts) is well understood by those who don't specialize in physics.

Why does the star vega spin