Neutron stars are strange and violent phenomena that defy the laws of physics, and new discoveries reveal that these bizarre nightmares are far more deadly than previously believed, with the power to destroy planets and even other stars.
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LearningTranscript
00:00Neutron stars, super heavy, super dense, extreme, gravitational, magnetic, hot, scary.
00:18They destroy planets.
00:21They can even destroy stars.
00:25A cosmic conundrum.
00:26They're very, very massive.
00:28But they're also really, really small.
00:32Tiny cosmic superpowers long overshadowed by black holes.
00:37Until now.
00:39Neutron stars have been thrust very much to the forefront of modern astrophysics.
00:44The world's astronomers know that something is happening.
00:47Something's up, it's new, and it's different.
00:50Neutron stars are the most interesting astrophysical object in the universe.
00:58Now firmly in the limelight, Neutron stars, creator of our most precious elements and life itself.
01:06Neutron stars, creator of our most precious animals.
01:10Neutron stars, creator of our most precious animals.
01:11Neutron stars, creator of our most precious elements.
01:13100 million light years from Earth.
01:14A galaxy called NGC 4993.
01:20130 million light years from earth a galaxy called ngc 4993 two dead stars trapped in a rapidly
01:37diminishing spiral it's like listening to the ringing of the cosmos itself the sound of that
01:50collision if you will imprinted on the fabric of space and time itself livingston louisiana
01:57the advanced ligo observatory its mission to detect gravitational waves generated in space
02:06gravitational wave is a distortion of space-time that's caused by usually some kind of very
02:14traumatic gravitational event events such as supernovas or the collision of black holes
02:21or massive stars 2015 ligo makes history by detecting gravitational waves for the first time
02:32100 years after einstein's prediction it's the signature of the crash of black holes
02:40it's almost like listening to the sound of a distant car crash that you didn't witness
02:46but you're so clever and the sound of this car crash is such a unique signature that you are
02:52able to use your computers to model exactly the type of cars that must have collided together
02:58then in 2017 ligo picks up a different kind of signal the unfolding of the august 2017 event was
03:09nothing short of extraordinary so the signal comes in and the signal is strange it has a long lasting
03:17signal it's over a hundred seconds less than two seconds later a gamma ray telescope detected a flash of
03:23gamma rays from that same part of the sky and very quickly the world's astronomers know that something
03:31is happening something's up it's new and it's different
03:38this combination of a long gravitational wave signal and a blaze of gamma rays
03:46acts as a beacon for astronomers
03:48when they saw this event they sent out a worldwide alert to astronomers across the globe saying hey
03:58we saw something interesting and it came from a particular patch of sky then all the chatter started
04:05amongst the astronomical community and everyone's starting pointing their telescopes at this one part of
04:10the sky within hours thousands of astronomers and physicists across the globe are frantically
04:18collecting data on this mysterious event
04:22there's not just the gravitational waves there's not just the gamma rays
04:26there's the visible light there's infrared light there's ultraviolet light
04:30and all these signals together tell us a story and this was the very first time
04:35we've seen these two multiple messengers at once gravitational waves and regular light
04:41so that was a groundbreaking moment for astronomy
04:48scientists realize this isn't another black hole collision this is something different
04:55when you see an explosion in the universe there aren't exactly a lot of candidates there's not
05:01a lot of things in the universe that blow up
05:03but the length of the signal is the smoking gun the collision of two black holes was quick this one
05:14was the longer slower death in spiral of two neutron stars spiraling in closer and closer speeding up
05:24and then when they finally collide when they finally touch releasing a tremendous amount of energy
05:30into the surrounding system
05:34the collision throws up huge clouds of matter which may have slowed down the light very slightly
05:40the light and gravitational waves travel for 130 million years arriving at earth almost simultaneously
05:48it's the first time astronomers see neutron stars collide
05:55they call it the kilonova and this spectacular cosmic event doesn't just release energy
06:03the aftermath of this neutron star collision this kilonova created a tremendous amount of debris
06:08which blasted out into space and this may finally have provided us the evidence of where some very special
06:14heavy elements are created through the destruction of a neutron star comes the seeds for the essential
06:23ingredients of life itself we breathe oxygen molecules o2 water is hydrogen and oxygen most of our
06:31body is made up of carbon compounds that include nitrogen phosphorus one of the big questions in science
06:39over the history of humanity has been what are the origins of these elements and it turns out that neutron
06:46stars play a critical role in creating many of the heavy elements
06:54most of the elements on earth are made in stars
07:00but how the heaviest elements are made has been one of science's longest running mysteries
07:06for a long time we knew there was a problem with making these heavier atoms things like gold and
07:12platinum you know all the way out towards uranium and really the most energetic thing we had in the
07:17universe was supernova explosions so they had to be created somehow in supernovas but when scientists
07:23ran computer simulations virtual supernovas failed to forge these oversized atoms
07:30in 2016 astronomer eto berger explained a potential solution to the mystery
07:43if you open any one of these books and flip to the page that tells you where gold came from it would
07:48tell you that gold came from supernova explosions
07:51but it was becoming clear the textbooks were out of date
08:06to form heavy elements requires a lot of neutrons and so another possible theory was that the heaviest
08:12elements were produced in the mergers of two neutron stars in a binary system
08:17but at the time no one had actually seen a neutron star collision it was difficult to convince the
08:23community that this was a potential channel for the production of heavy elements
08:28the proof is to actually see this process happening in the universe
08:34the 2017 kilonova provides the perfect opportunity it generates thousands of hours of data
08:41scientists notice a pattern subtle changes in the color of the kilonova remnants
08:50in space when you have an event that is very bright it emits a certain amount of light and it emits
08:55it at certain wavelengths what we think of as colors different colors in a pyrotechnics display indicate the use
09:03of different chemicals and fireworks in the same way scientists can uncover the elements in the kilonova
09:10by the colors in the explosion as the kilonova turns red they realize it's the result of newly
09:18created heavy elements starting to absorb blue light as we watched this remnant change the explosion
09:26change in color expand and cool we could estimate what sort of elements were being produced
09:31the light from the debris shifts from blue and violet to red and infrared the color change provides clues
09:42about the presence of certain heavy metals
09:44well this neutron star collision this kilonova produced brightness and a color spectrum that are
10:00consistent with models of predictions that produce gold and platinum
10:05this model is called the r process short for rapid neutron capture
10:14that is a bit of a complicated term that describes how we make atoms heavier than iron you need a really
10:20neutron rich environment and as you might imagine a neutron star collision is a very neutron rich environment
10:27if these models are correct and this blows me away this collision this kilonova produced several dozen
10:35times the mass of the earth in just gold
10:46the 2017 kilonova not only reveals the origin of key elements it sheds light on the neutron star's interior
10:55the strongest material in the universe creating a magnetic field a trillion times greater than that of earth
11:13two neutron stars caught in a death spiral
11:26this massive kilonova explosion not only sheds light on the creation of heavy elements such as gold and platinum
11:36it also provides scientists with a unique insight into one of the most mysterious objects in the universe
11:44trying to imagine what a neutron star is really like really challenges our imagination it also
11:49challenges our theoretical physics we have to go to our computer models our mathematics to have some
11:54estimate of what this might be like
11:56of what this might be like
11:58now scientists don't have to rely on their imaginations
12:03they can use hard data from the kilonova to work out what makes neutron stars tick
12:14there's so much information we got from observing that one single event that one colliding neutron star
12:19pair
12:20now for the first time we have an accurate estimate of the mass of the neutron star and the diameter
12:25we can finally begin to piece together how neutron stars really work
12:30they calculate the diameter is just 12.4 miles
12:35one mile less than the length of manhattan
12:39nailing down any physical characteristic is really important and if there's going to be one the radius is
12:45a big one because from there if you know the mass you can get the density and if you know the overall
12:49density you can start to figure out what the layering inside of a neutron star is like
12:59for physicists the interior of a neutron star is one of the most intriguing places in the universe
13:06you have to realize that the conditions inside a neutron star are very very different than the
13:10conditions that exist here on earth we're talking about material that's so dense that even the the
13:15nuclei of atoms can't hold together with the neutron star you're taking something that weighs more than
13:20the sun and compressing it down to be smaller than a city it's so dense that if you tried to put it on
13:27the ground it would fall right through the earth high density means high gravity gravity 200 billion times
13:38greater than on earth imagine climbing up on a table on the surface of a neutron star and jumping off
13:43you're going to just get flattened instantly and just spread out on that surface so don't even think
13:49about trying to do push-ups added to the intense gravity are hugely powerful magnetic fields awesome x-ray
13:59radiation electric fields 30 million times more powerful than lightning bolts and blizzards of high
14:07energy particles for a space traveler this is not a good neighborhood
14:16if you were to find yourself in the vicinity of a neutron star it's going to be bad news first you would
14:23be torn apart by the incredibly strong magnetic fields then the x-ray radiation would blast you to a
14:31crisp and as it pulled you closer its intense gravity would stretch out your atoms and molecules into a
14:38long thin stream you would build your speed faster and faster and you'd finally impact the surface
14:46splatter across it and that process would release as much energy as a nuclear bomb
14:51if i had the choice between falling into a neutron star versus a black hole i think i'd pick the black
15:01hole because i don't really feel like being torn apart by a magnetic field and blasted with x-rays
15:11on a cosmic scale neutron stars may be pint-sized but they sure pack a serious punch
15:17the secret to all this pent-up power is what's going on below the surface
15:25armed with the new kilonova data we can now take a virtual journey into the heart of a neutron star
15:32first we must pass through its atmosphere now it's not like the earth's atmosphere which goes up like
15:38a hundred miles on a neutron star the atmosphere is about this deep and it's extremely dense compared to
15:45the air around us below the compressed atmosphere is a crust of ionized iron a mixture of crystal iron
15:54nuclei and free-flowing iron electrons now the gravity is so strong that it's almost perfectly smooth
16:02the biggest mountains on the surface are going to be less than a quarter of an inch high
16:06a quarter inch mountain range may sound odd
16:12but things get even stranger as we go below the surface
16:18this is home to the strongest material in the universe
16:25it's so weird scientists liken it to nuclear pasta
16:29as we dive beneath the crust of a neutron star the neutrons themselves start to glue themselves
16:37together into exotic shapes first they form clumps that look something like gnocchi then deeper the
16:46gnocchi glue themselves together to form long strands that look like spaghetti even deeper the spaghetti fused
16:54together to form sheets of lasagna and then finally the lasagna fused together to become a uniform mass but
17:02with holes in it so it looks like pennant this is pasta nuclear style simmering at a temperature of over a
17:13million degrees fahrenheit extreme gravity bends squeezes stretches and buckles neutrons creating a material
17:22100 000 billion times denser than iron but the journey gets even more extreme
17:30even deeper is more mysterious and harder to understand the core of a neutron star which is very
17:37far away from these layers which we call the nuclear pasta is perhaps the most exotic form of matter so exotic
17:45it might be the last bastion of matter before complete gravitational collapse into a black hole
17:55data from nasa's chandra observatory suggests the core is made up of a superfluid a bizarre
18:02friction-free state of matter superfluids produced in the lab exhibit strange properties such as the ability
18:11to flow upwards and escape airtight containers although our knowledge of the star's interior is still hazy
18:20there's no mystery about its dazzling birth forged into life during the most spectacular event the universe
18:27has to offer the explosive death of a massive star
18:41newtron stars manhattan-sized but with a mass twice that of our sun
18:57so dense a teaspoon of their matter weighs a billion tons
19:03mind-blowing objects that arrive with a batting
19:06newtron stars spark into life amid the death of their parent star they're the ultimate story of
19:13resurrection or life from death it's all part of a cosmic cycle
19:20stars are born from giant clouds of very cold gas those clouds collapse under their own gravity
19:28and the density of the core at the center of that collapse starts to increase
19:36a star is a huge nuclear fusion reactor the force of its gravity is so powerful that it fuses atoms
19:45together to make progressively heavier and heavier elements the star fuses hydrogen into helium once it
19:54exhausts its hydrogen then if it's massive enough it can start fusing helium at its core
19:59fusion continues forming carbon oxygen nitrogen all the way up to iron once the star has iron in the
20:12core it's almost like you've poisoned it because this extinguishes the nuclear reactions in the core of
20:19the star you fuse something into iron and you get no energy all of a sudden there's nothing to support the
20:26crush of gravity no radiation pressure pushing out means no pressure keeping the outer regions from
20:32falling in and that's what they do as the star collapses in its death throes its core becomes
20:39the wildest craziest and freakiest pressure cooker in the whole universe
20:47the ingredients are all in place time to start cooking up a neutron star
20:53if we're to scale up an atomic nucleus to be the size of a baseball in a normal atom the nearest
21:02electron would be way over in those trees but in the extreme conditions that lead to the formation of
21:08a neutron star those electrons can be pushed closer to the nucleus they can come zipping in from any
21:16direction and if the temperatures and pressures are high enough they can even strike the nucleus and
21:22enter it and they can hit a proton and when they do they become converted into more neutrons so in
21:30the formation of one of these objects the protons and electrons disappear and you're left with almost
21:35entirely pure neutrons with nothing to stop them from cramming together and filling up this entire
21:42baseball with neutrons leading to incredibly high densities
21:47with the sea of electrons now absorbed into the atomic nuclei the matter and the stars can now press
21:54together a lot tighter it's like squeezing 300 million tons of mass into a single sugar cube
22:05as the star collapses enormous amounts of gas fall towards the core
22:08the core is small in size but huge in mass
22:16billions of tons of gas bounce off of it then erupt into the biggest fireworks display in the cosmos
22:25a supernova
22:28it's massive it's bright it's imposing supernova are among the most dramatic events to happen in the
22:36universe a single star dying one star dying can outshine an entire galaxy
22:47and arising out of this cataclysm a new and very strange cosmic entity
22:55when the smoke finally clears from the supernova explosion you're left with one of the most real
23:00fascinating unbelievable monsters in the entire universe humans have been witnessing supernovas
23:06for thousands of years but we're only now just starting to understand what we've truly been witnessing
23:13the births of neutron stars
23:17but while supernovas are big and bright neutron stars are small and many don't even give off light
23:24so how many neutron stars are out there we know of about 2 000 neutron stars in our galaxy but there
23:34probably are many many more i'm talking about tens of millions in the milky way alone and certainly
23:39billions throughout the universe neutron stars may be small but some give themselves away shooting beams
23:50across the universe unmistakable pulsing strobes of a cosmic lighthouse
24:04our knowledge of neutron stars is expanding fast
24:23but we didn't even know they existed until a lucky discovery just over 50 years ago
24:28Cambridge the mullard radio observatory jocelyn bell grad student operating the new radio telescope
24:39scanning the sky doing all sorts of cool astronomy stuff and sees what she calls a bit of scruff in the
24:45data this scruff is a short but constantly repeating burst of radiation originating a thousand light years from
24:55earth it's so stable and regular that bell is convinced there's something wrong with her telescope
25:03she returns to that spot and finds a repeating regular signal a single point in the sky that is
25:12flashing at us continually saying hi hi hi blip blip blip boom boom boom pulse pulse pulse nothing that we
25:24know of in the universe has such a steady perfectly spaced in time pulse it seems so perfect
25:32that it must have been artificial it looks like someone is making that but it turns out it's not a
25:39person but a thing what she discovered is called a pulsar
25:47a pulsar is a type of rapidly spinning neutron star
25:51neutron stars had been theorized in the 1930s but were thought to be too faint to be detected
26:02neutron stars were hypothesized to exist but not really taken seriously it was just uh oh that's cute
26:12maybe they're out there but probably not the signal bell detected seemed like something from science fiction
26:21no one had ever seen this in astronomy before and some people even speculated that it was an alien
26:27signal she even called them lgm objects little green men but then bell found a second signal
26:36little green men went back to being fiction and pulsars became science fact the discovery of pulsars came
26:47out of the blue nobody was expecting this so it was a an amazing breakthrough really important
26:56pulsars pulse because they're born to spin
26:59they burst into life as their parent star collapses during a supernova
27:08any object at all that is undergoing any sort of compression event if it has any initial angular
27:15momentum at all it will eventually end up spinning as the star shrinks it spins faster and faster
27:24they spin so quickly because the earth-sized core of a massive star collapsed to something as small as
27:34a city so because the size of the object became so much smaller the rate of spin had to increase by a
27:42tremendous amount neutron stars can spin really really fast their surface is moving so fast it's moving at
27:50about 20 percent the speed of light in some cases so if you were to get on the neutron star ride no
27:57pregnant women no bad backs no heart issues keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times because
28:04they are about to be obliterated and as they spin they generate flashing beams of energy
28:13this beam is like a lighthouse beam you see these periodic flashes many times per second so every time you see
28:20it beam beam beam beam these beams are the pulsars calling card they're generated by the elemental chaos
28:29raging inside a neutron star although the star is predominantly a ball of neutrons the crust is
28:37sprinkled with protons and electrons spinning hundreds of times a second generating an incredible magnetic field
28:44and with the strong magnetic field you can create strong electric fields and the electric and magnetic
28:51fields can work off of each other and become radiation these neutron stars send jets beams of radiation
29:01out of their spinning poles and if their spinning pole is misaligned if they're a little bit tilted
29:07this beam will make circles across the universe and if we're in the path of one of these circles we'll see
29:15a flash a flash just like if you're on a ship and you observe a distant lighthouse in a foggy night
29:22you can see pulsars across the vast expanse of space because they are immensely powerful beams of light
29:29but sometimes pulsars get an extra push that accelerates the spin even more the way you make
29:38it spin even faster is by subsequently dumping more material onto it that's called accretion and you end
29:44up spinning it up even faster than it was already spinning like stellar vampires pulsars are ready to suck
29:51the life out of any objects that stray too close gravity is bringing that material in which means that any spin
29:58it has is accelerated it spins faster and faster these millisecond pulsars spin at around 700
30:06revolutions per second they are the ultimate kitchen blender they will chop they will slice they will
30:13even julienne fry so what stops neutron stars from simply tearing themselves apart neutron stars are
30:24incredibly exotic objects with immense immense forces that bind them together and so they can be held
30:31rigid even against these incredibly fast rotation speeds they have incredibly strong gravity and this
30:40is what allows them to hold together even though they're spinning around so fast
30:44the speed of the spin is hard to imagine
30:52on earth a day is 24 hours long on a neutron star it's a 700th of a second long super speeding pulsars are
31:02not the only weird stars that scientists are coming to grips with there is one other type of neutron star
31:08that has the most powerful magnetic field in the universe this magnetic monster is called a magnetar
31:22that's amazing i mean you've got this incredibly dense object and suddenly it's spinning faster it happens
31:50instantly they'll suddenly change frequency it would take an amazing amount of power to do that
31:56what's doing it these sudden changes in speed are called glitches
32:02one leading idea for what causes these glitches is that the core material latches onto the crust and
32:07this affects the way it can spin around but there's another possible explanation glitches could also be
32:14caused by starquakes this process releases a tremendous amount of radiation a blast of x-rays
32:22causes the face of the neutron star to rearrange itself and for the rotation speed to change
32:30these starquakes release energy trapped inside the neutron star
32:36sometimes the crust gets ruptured anything that basically changes the geometry
32:40geometry of the pulsar can change the rate at which it spins
32:46so what could be powerful enough to cause these starquakes
32:50it's hard to believe that there's any force in the universe
32:54that could deform the matter inside of a neutron star which is undergoing tremendous gravity but when it
33:00comes to a neutron star if there's one thing that can do it it's magnetism
33:04extreme magnetic fields within the star can get so twisted they can rip the crust wide open
33:12and so the surface can restructure itself and constantly reshape and just a tiny reconfiguration
33:19of the surface of a neutron star on the order of a few millimeters would be associated with an enormous
33:24release of energy the neutron star's immense gravity smooths over the star's surface almost immediately
33:34it's like the glitch never happened
33:40when it comes to neutron stars there is no end to magnetic mayhem
33:47meet the reigning champion in the universal strongest magnetic field competition the magnetar
33:56one in ten neutron stars formed during a supernova becomes a magnetar
34:02the thing about magnetars as is implied in their name the magnetic field on them is so strong
34:08that even somebody who is used to using big numbers like say an astronomer is still kind of in awe of
34:14these things magnetars have a magnetic field one thousand trillion times stronger than that of earth's
34:23this amount of magnetism will seriously mess up anything that comes close
34:27any normal object that we're familiar with if it got close to a magnetar would just be shredded any
34:35charged particle that with any movement at all would just be torn from its atom it would be just an insane
34:41situation magnetars burn brightly but their lives are brief we think magnetars these intensely magnetized
34:50neutron stars can only be really short-lived their magnetic field is so powerful that it should decay
34:56over very rapid timescales only on the order of a few 10 000 years it seems their very strength leads to
35:03their downfall that magnetic field is so strong that it's picking up material around it and accelerating it
35:10well that acts like a drag slowing it down so over time the spin of the neutron star slows and the magnetic field
35:16dies away during their lives magnetars operate very differently than pulsars they don't have beams
35:25their magnetic fields shoot out gigantic bursts of high intensity radiation
35:33but recently astronomers have spotted one neutron star that's hard to classify
35:37it behaves like a stellar jekyll and hyde so this particular neutron star is a really weird example
35:48it behaves both like a radio pulsar and also a highly magnetized magnetar it has the extreme magnetic fields
35:56it can have these magnetic outbursts but it also has this strong jet of radiation coming out of its poles
36:03it's almost like it has a split personality when first sighted in 2000 this star was emitting radio waves
36:11typical pulsar behavior then 16 years later it stopped pulsing and suddenly started sending out
36:20massive x-ray bursts the actions of a magnetar scientists were baffled we don't know if this thing
36:30is a pulsar turning into a magnetar or a magnetar turning into a pulsar one theory is that these
36:36x-ray bursts happen because the star's magnetic field suddenly twisted the stress became so great
36:44the star cracked wide open releasing the x-rays from the fractured crust a neutron star is the densest
36:52material that we know of in the universe and yet we've seen things that actually make it shift and
36:57pull apart this neutron star is actually ripping itself apart under the forces of the magnetic field
37:03if this is the case placid neutron stars turn into raging magnetars growing old disgracefully
37:12when you think about the life cycle of a human being we seem to kind of slow down over age become
37:16a little more calmer neutron stars do the opposite they can be spinning faster than they were when they
37:21were formed and the magnetic field can get stronger over time it's sort of a reverse aging process
37:27but these strange changes are extremely rare most pulsars are as regular as clockwork
37:36pulsars are normally incredibly regular you can literally set your watch the timing of their pulse
37:42and it's this stability that we may use in our future exploration of the universe you know if
37:48you're a starship captain what you need is a galactic gps system well it turns out neutron stars may be the
38:07star star's often compare the steady flash of spinning neutron stars called pulsars to cosmic lighthouses
38:19These flashes are not only remarkably reliable,
38:23each pulsar has its very own distinct flickering beam.
38:28Each one has a slightly different frequency, each one has a slightly different rate.
38:34Anyone in the galaxy, no matter where you are, can all agree on the positions of these pulsars.
38:41The unique signature of pulsars opens up intriguing possibilities for the future of space travel.
38:55We would basically be using pulsars to be able to sort of triangulate where we're at.
39:01And because those pulses are so precise, we can use that in a similar way that we use GPS satellites that are stationed above the Earth.
39:11Using pulsars as navigational aids is not a new idea.
39:16It was recognized by the NASA Voyager mission in the 1970s.
39:22Affixed to the surface of those spacecraft is a golden record.
39:26And on the plate that covers that record is a pulsar map,
39:29which in principle could tell an advanced alien civilization how to find Earth.
39:34Because it uses the position of Earth relative to 14 known pulsars
39:39as effectively a way to triangulate the position of our planet relative to all of these pulsars.
39:46Aliens haven't made contact, but NASA still uses pulsar maps.
39:52NASA recently launched a satellite called NICER Sextant
39:55that exists on the International Space Station that is being used to test these types of theories.
40:01They've used pulsars to figure out the location of an object orbiting around the Earth at 17,000 miles an hour,
40:16and they were able to pinpoint its location to within three miles.
40:19That's pretty incredible.
40:22By recognizing their position relative to known pulsars,
40:26future space missions could navigate the universe.
40:29Neutron stars are going to take us on this incredible journey.
40:39Something as necessary as knowing where you are in the galaxy.
40:42We could be many hundreds of light years away,
40:44but neutron stars can actually show us where in the Milky Way we are.
40:47I read a lot of science fiction, and I love the idea of being able to go from star to star, planet to planet.
41:02It's kind of weird to think that in the future, as a galactic coordinate grid,
41:08we might wind up using these gigantic atomic nuclei,
41:13these rapidly spinning, bizarrely constructed, magnetic, fiercely gravitational objects like neutron stars.
41:23Neutron stars have come a long way since being mistaken for little green men.
41:28Once overlooked as astronomical oddities,
41:34they've now taken center stage as genuine stellar superstars.
41:41What's really exciting about neutron stars is that we're at the beginning of studying them.
41:47We're not at the conclusion.
41:49We've learned a lot, but there's a lot more to be learned.
41:51From the humble neutron comes the most powerful, the most rapid, the strongest magnetic field,
42:00the most exotic objects in the cosmos.
42:04I love the idea of a phoenix, something actually rising from its own ashes.
42:08You think something dies, and that's the end of the story.
42:10But something even more beautiful, even more fascinating comes afterwards.
42:14I told you at the beginning, and you didn't believe me, but now I hope you do.
42:18Neutron stars are the most fascinating astrophysical objects in the universe.