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Neutron stars grow magnetic whiskers

JAN 01, 1972

It is generally agreed that neutron stars or pulsars have enormous magnetic fields at their surface—in the range 1012–1013 gauss. Mal Ruderman of Columbia University has considered (Phys. Rev. Lett. 27, 1306, 1971) what happens to ordinary matter in such fields. He concludes that the surface of the neutron star is not a gas but condensed matter arranged in whiskers of atoms. “Neutron stars have hair,” he explains.

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Volume 25, Number 1

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