A very massive star collapsed to form a neutron star and not a
black hole as anticipated, according to new results from NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery shows that nature has
a harder time making black holes than previously thought.
Scientists found this neutron star – a dense whirling ball of
neutrons about 12 miles in diameter – in an extremely young star
cluster. Astronomers were able to use well-determined properties
of other stars in the cluster to deduce that the parent star of
this neutron star was at least 40 times the mass of the sun.
"Our discovery shows that some of the most massive stars do not
collapse to form black holes as predicted, but instead form
neutron stars," said Michael Muno, a University of California,
Los Angeles, postdoctoral Hubble fellow. He is lead author of a
paper to be published in an upcoming edition of The
Astrophysical Journal Letters. When very massive stars make
neutron stars and not black holes, they will have a greater
influence on the composition of fut