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Black Holes & Neutron Stars
Calibrating physical parameters & celestial coordinates...
Extreme Objects Laboratory: event horizons, lensing, pulsars, and gravitational waves
COGNITIVE CALIBRATION · 03 DEPTH TIERS
First confirmed stellar-mass black hole. Feeds from blue supergiant companion star HDE 226868 with X-ray emitting accretion disk.
The violent battle between gravity and atomic pressure
For millions of years, hydrostatic equilibrium balances nuclear fusion against gravitational self-attraction.
Fusion can only produce energy up to iron (Fe-56). Fusing iron consumes energy instead of releasing it. When a star over 8 times the Sun's mass builds an iron core exceeding 1.44 solar masses, electron degeneracy pressure fails. The iron core collapses at 70,000 km/s—about a quarter the speed of light—rebounding as a Type II core-collapse supernova.
Loading Authorized Questions...
Calibrating question set for explorer level