The universe is replete with wondrously massive objects and is a vast place. Neutron stars and black holes have the greatest mass. Their mass is so enormous that it is beyond comprehension. Take a peek inside these great mysteries.
Typically, we associate the word “heavy” with items like bookbags, purses, and shopping totes.
When bags are passed over to the person designated to lift heavy items in a shopping center, it is common practice for customers to ask, “What is in here, lead weights?”
Lead is a heavy metal. It is also durable and frequently used to manufacture sinkers and weights. When you think of its weight in terms of mass per unit volume or per teaspoon, it is one of the heaviest elements on the planet. This is because the lead atoms are very close to one another, which makes them a dense material.
The phrase “it went down like a lead balloon” needs some modification to “osmium balloon,” I believe. Indeed, osmium is one of the densest substances on the earth. A teaspoon of osmium weighs twice the same amount of lead.
Osmium is a chemical element classified with the platinum group metals. It is frequently incorporated into alloys and utilized in fountain pen nibs and electrical connections.
Andrew Melatos, an associate professor at the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne, noted that the heaviest and most dense substance in the known universe must be the interior of a neutron star.
The Associate Professor added, “a teaspoon of neutron star would weigh somewhere near a billion tons.”The information on the NASA website shows that this weight is roughly the same as Mount Everest.
The formation of a neutron star results from the implosion of a massive, smoldering star that was once between 10 and 100 times larger than our sun. When a massive sun finally goes supernova, it uses up all of its fuel. The force of gravity becomes so great that the universe begins to collapse.
The pressure is usually extreme, causing an explosion in the form of a stunning supernova spewing gas across all directions. Although it lasts only a few seconds, it shines brighter than the other 100 billion stars in our galaxy during that period.
What is left behind is a densely packed ball of neutrons – a neutron star – which is approximately 30 kilometers across. Indeed, this is usually about the size of Melbourne. However, the mass of a large sun packed into it makes it crazily dense.
Neutron stars have a high density, which means their gravity is strong. This makes them suitable for studying gravitational waves, which, as Einstein predicted in 1916, can provide insight into the fundamental structure of space and time.
But there is no need to get all up about it because the sun will go supernova for another five billion years.
The sun is one of the stars of the universe, but it is a minor one. It will not turn into a neutron star, but instead, it will consume all of the helium and hydrogen in its core and evolve into a red giant.
At that moment, our sun will consume all the planets in its neighborhood, including the earth. Nuclear reactions will continue to convert helium into carbon, like a giant diamond the size of the earth. At that point, it will be referred to as a white dwarf.
Therefore, heavy stars transform into neutron stars, the heaviest objects in the universe. At the same time, more massive stars are capable of transforming into black holes.
A black hole has high center-of-mass energy; light is swallowed up and never escapes. The signature of a black hole can be found by observing how stars and interstellar materials are affected by it. Black holes fall into four categories, intermediate, tiny, stellar, and supermassive.
TON 618 is the most giant known black hole. It has a mass of 66T solar masses, as determined by the size of its broad line region and its orbital velocity. In terms of size, it now belongs to the subset of black holes known as ultra-massive black holes.
The supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 85 is 40 trillion times as big as our sun and hence takes its place.
