Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>   For some reason thinking about neutron stars, they sound even scarier.
>
>   Just imagine: A spherical object which is something like 8 times as
> massive as the Sun, but which diameter is just a few kilometers (something
> which you could just walk accross in less than a half hour), rotating even
> several thousands of times per second.
>
>   I wouldn't want such an object anywhere near me... :P

.... so you'd prefer a thing near you that you can't even *see* that it's there?
:P

But neutron stars are scary enough indeed. Just imagine: The gravitation on
their surface is so strong that although they're incredibly hot, their
atmosphere is just about a meter thick. And you better hold on tight to your
mobile phone, because if you'd accidently drop it, it would *SLAM!* into the
ground at something like 4.3 *MILLION* mph! Now explain *that* to customer care
service, with all those "warranty void if removed" labels not only peeled off,
but probably disintegrated into subatomic particles upon impact...

Scary! Better not go there...

Or think about that spacetime is so warped already that their circumference is
not 2pi r, but something like 4pi r... of which you can see something like 3pi
r at the same time, because the gravitation is so strong that the photons get
the bends... and everything flying away from it at less than something like 33%
the speed of light will ultimately fall back...

And although the light leaving them experiences a *considerable* redshift,
they're so mind-bogglingly hot that most photons reaching us are still in the
X-Ray spectrum...

Yeah, children, heed my advice: Better not go there... so you're right: Who
needs black holes if he can have neutron stars to stay clear of! ;)

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