Jimmy's Neutron

Summary: Neutron stars are loco.

Why it's a Mind Blow: Our universe is full of fantastical, mind-boggling, crazy-weird wonders. One of the most bizarre phenomena out there has to be neutron stars.

Neutron stars form when a normal star reaches the end of it's life and goes supernova. During these stellar explosions, the core of the dying star compresses. What remains is comprised mostly of neutrons (neutrally charged atomic particles) crushed into a smooth, white-hot sphere about 10 miles in diameter.

Neutron stars are massive, The crushing force of gravity pulls the pearl of atomic matter in so tightly that the mass is one to two times that of our own sun. Remember, it's only 10 miles across! Neutron stars are so massive, that if you dropped a grain of sand one meter above the surface, it would accelerate to 7.2 million kilometers per second as it fell. The force of it's impact on the surface would actually destroy the component atomic parts, thus converting the sand into more neutron star.

A neutron star is so massive, that a teaspoon of it's material contains the same mass as the Great Pyramid at Giza. It is so dense, that every human on Planet Earth would be compressed together to the size of a sugar cube on it's surface. And it spins so fast, up to several hundred revolutions a second, that you could travel from New York to L.A. and back again in that same second!

So why am I telling you all this, (lest you think your Daily Mind Blow might degenerate into a glorified science text book)? Simple - the wonders of nature are so numerous and comprehensively bizarre, that it blows my mind. Neutron stars are a great example. Just imagine, they're actually real and what's more, we figured out how to understand them! Crazy.