Astro-image of the day: nearest neutron star

[mckitterick]

Cool. We've just identified a neutron star that lives not far away:

Click the image for the full story.

These things are damned cool. Imagine an object heavier than our Sun (as much as 2-3 times as massive), but contained in a sphere about the size of a small Earth city. Because it's so massive yet so compact, the gravity fields surrounding it as you approach in your age-worn spaceship become so immense that tidal forces between your head and feet could tear you apart.

Y'all read Niven's Neutron Star, right? Or at least Ringworld? (I do believe that story is part of the book, isn't it? If not, well, they're conflated in my mind.) Excellent dramatization of what it would be like to approach one of these monsters.

Best,
Chris

Comments

[affreca.livejournal.com]

The incidents in Neutron Star might be mentioned in Ringworld, but the short story isn't part of the book (though if I remember right, Louie in Ringworld is somehow related to the protagonist of Neutron Star. Perhaps adopted son? I haven't read Crashlander in years.)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's literally been decades since I read either of them, but that description of being near a neutron star stuck with me.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I wonder why there weren't induced currents from flying through the neutron's star's magnet field at high speed?

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I don't recall if he addressed that. They'd be huge.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I have the image of Shaeffer's fillings puffing into vapour (I joke: no doubt he has the teeth of a convicted criminal :).

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Now there's an image I don't want to dwell on. Especially considering the next astro-post I just made (re: relativistic effects around neutron stars).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Louis Wu shares a name with Carlos Wu, who on the request of Beowulf and Sharrol Janss (Beowulf's wife) fathered Sharrol Janss' kid(s), Tanya and Louis.

It's a good chance that Sharrol's Louis is not Louis Wu, because:

1: Why, if Sharrol and Beowulf were married, would the kid have the surname Wu? Why not Shaeffer or Janss?

2: Louis does not ever seem to have had Beowulf tell him about Beowulf's adventures.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If Niven later retconned things to make Louis Beowulf's adoptive son, I say "Lah lah lah" and also "I can't heeeeeeear youuuuu."

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

8-D

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Y'all read Niven's Neutron Star, right? Or at least Ringworld? (I do believe that story is part of the book, isn't it?

Nope, Ringworld is set some centuries after the events shown in Neutron Star. In fact, as I recall Louis Wu (the protagonist of Ringworld) doesn't seem to know who Beowulf Shaeffer (The protagonist of Neutron Star and more importantly At the Core) was.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In the olden days when Niven books had Rick Sternbach covers, the collection Neutron Star was my second favourite Niven collection, after A Hole in Space [1].

1: Which didn't have an RS cover.

[stonetable.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome picture. I wish they had wallpaper-sized versions of that.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Y'know, the NASA site just might. They distribute some GINORMOUS images for printing and putting on your wall.

[stonetable.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. Their high-resolution images are huge, but they can be shrunk down to fit. Thanks!

[jjgalahad.livejournal.com]

I have a terrible urge to make a joke about burning. While doing some sort of dance.