Why do neutron stars spin so fast?
Quick Answer
Neutron stars spin fast because they inherit the original star’s rotation, and their collapse shrinks them dramatically. Conservation of angular momentum makes a tiny remnant rotate much faster, sometimes hundreds of times per second.
The Full Story
When a massive star collapses into a neutron star, it shrinks from a body thousands or millions of kilometers wide to one only about 20 kilometers across. As the radius decreases, the rotation speeds up dramatically, like an ice skater pulling in their arms. Some neutron stars, called pulsars, rotate in milliseconds and sweep radio beams across Earth. The fastest known pulsars spin more than 700 times per second. Their rapid spin is one of the most extreme results of stellar collapse.
Key Facts
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