Neutron Star Structure Diagram (IMAGE)
Caption
Neutron stars are very small and dense stars, where roughly half a million earth masses of material are squeezed into a city-sized volume with a radius of 10 km. They are mostly composed of neutrons and the interior is thought to contain layers of superfluid, although the composition of the innermost core is still unknown. The NICER mission will probe these stars to reveal the nature of matter under these extreme physical conditions.
Credit
Credit: K.C. Gendreau et al. (2012), SPIE, 8443, 13
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