What are neutron stars made of?

The existence of neutron stars was first proposed by Baade and Zwicky in 1934, right after the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick in 1932. But what are neutron ... Although neutrons are the most abundant constituents of neutrons stars, other types of particles may exist in their interiors as well. read more

The wonderful discovery of the Higgs boson, announced at CERN on July 2012, has represented another big leap forward for the Standard Model of particle physics that explains how elementary particles behave in the microscopic world. read more

A neutron star is the collapsed core of a large star which before collapse had a total of between 10 and 29 solar masses. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars, not counting hypothetical quark stars and strange stars. read more

Like normal stars, two neutron stars can orbit one another. If they are close enough, they can even spiral inwards to their doom in a intense phenomena known as a "kilonova." The collision of two neutron stars made waves heard 'round the world in 2017, when researchers detected gravitational waves and light coming from the same cosmic smashup. read more