What we would see visually during the transformation would be a hard radiation flash. When you talk about a black hole with a stable mass (at least 3 solar masses), it is good to consider that they come in 4 flavors: rotating-charged, rotating-uncharged, non-rotating-charged, non-rotating-uncharged. The upper/lower mass limit for a quark star is not known (or at least I couldn't find it), in any case, it is a narrow band around 3 solar masses, which is the minimum stable mass of a black hole. If the neutron star's mass is then increased, neutrons become degenerate, breaking up into their constituent quarks, thus the star becomes a quark star a further increase in mass results in a black hole. In the case that the supernova results in a neutron star core, the electrons and protons in the core are merged to become neutrons, so the newly born 20-km-diameter neutron star containing between 1.4 and 3 solar masses is like a giant atomic nucleus containing only neutrons. We know that 1 electron + 1 proton = 1 neutron ġ neutron = 3 quarks = up quark + down quark + down quark ġ proton = 3 quarks = up quark + up quark + down quark Ī supernova results in either a neutron star (between 1.4 and 3 solar masses), a quark star(about 3 solar masses), or a black hole(greater than 3 solar masses), which is the remaining collapsed core of the star.ĭuring a supernova, most of the stellar mass is blown off into space, forming elements heavier than iron which cannot be generated through stellar nucleosynthesis, because beyond iron, the star requires more energy to fuse the atoms than it gets back.ĭuring the supernova collapse, the atoms in the core break up into electrons, protons and neutrons.
If it gets more massive than that, then it will collapse into a quark star, and then into a black hole.
The maximum mass of a neutron star is 3 solar masses. See Chandrasekhar limit on wikipedia for details.Ī neutron star is formed during a supernova, an explosion of a star that is at least 8 solar masses.
A neutron star must have a minimum mass of at least 1.4x solar masses (that is, 1.4x mass of our Sun) in order to become a neutron star in the first place.