Astronomers have weighed a neutron star with nearly double the mass of the sun, the heaviest yet found. A mass that high rules out many theories that these ultradense remnants of supernova explosions contain anything other than ordinary matter, researchers report in the Oct. 28 Nature.
Some theorists have suggested that the high pressure in a neutron star’s core could break the matter there down into a soup of unbound quarks, the subatomic particles that combine to make protons and neutrons, or other exotic forms.
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.