Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Neutron stars are so heavy, that you wouldn't be able to lift even a piece of one the size of a grain of sand. So what are neutron stars? How do neutron stars form and what makes a neutron star so heavy? Today, we're tackling these questions and more. We're going to visualize how much a very tiny amount of a neutron star weighs (if we somehow brought it to earth), and it's pretty amazing. From magnetars to pulsars, let's take a look at one of the wildest objects in astronomy - a neutron star.
A quick notes on the statistics in this episode: like all things, neutron stars vary from one another greatly. The facts we discuss in this video about mass and gravitational force are assuming a neutron star of 20km in diameter (average density of 8.35×1010 kg/cm3), where 5 ml has a mass of about 400 million metric tons. Incidentally, this would be one of the least dense neutron stars, with some denser ones producing as much as 200 BILLION times earth gravity at their surface. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#cite_note-35 This means that many of the grains of sand shown in this video are in fact, too large - but we had to used larger sand grains in order to see them in the video. Wild! For the size of the sand in our conversations, we used Wolfram Alpha's volume definition of 24.6 microliters. Here's our conversion chart:
5lm = 400,000,000 metric tons
1 grain of sand = 6,000 metric tons, or two Saturn V rockets / 1,238,000 (100lb) dumbbells
35 grains of sand = 214,000 metric tons, or the Wonder of the Seas (ship)
3717 grains of sand, or 1/16 a teaspoon = 23,000,000 metric tons, or 4 pyramids of Giza
Video Timestamps:
00:00 - Lifting a Neutron Star at the Gym
01:29 - What is a Neutron Star?
01:58 - Atoms 101
02:41 - Inside a Dying Star
03:26 - Weight on Earth
04:20 - Bending Light
Other Resources:
NASA gallery of Neutron Star Images - https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/category/neutronstars.html
Episode Credits:
Written, Directed, and Edited: Jared Belcher
3D Animation: Andy Belcher (instagram.com/andy__animates/)
2D Animation and Compositing: Jared Belcher
Original Theme Music: Branded.
Episode Music: "Allegiance" and "Static" by Duomo
Special Thanks: Mossy Creek Crossfit
Equipment Used:
iPhone 13 Pro
Tascam DR-10L Portable Digital Audio Recorder With Lavalier Microphone amzn.to/3pCXF0g
DJI Osmo Mobile 5 amzn.to/3QLFcuk
DJI Mavic Pro amzn.to/3cgOlw4
2022 MacBook Air (M2) amzn.to/3ADHtlC
2019 MacBook Pro
Autodesk Maya
Final Cut Pro
Apple Motion
Motion VFX Zoom Transition Pack 3
Neutron stars are so heavy, that you wouldn't be able to lift even a piece of one the size of a grain of sand. So what are neutron stars? How do neutron stars form and what makes a neutron star so heavy? Today, we're tackling these questions and more. We're going to visualize how much a very tiny amount of a neutron star weighs (if we somehow brought it to earth), and it's pretty amazing. From magnetars to pulsars, let's take a look at one of the wildest objects in astronomy - a neutron star.
A quick notes on the statistics in this episode: like all things, neutron stars vary from one another greatly. The facts we discuss in this video about mass and gravitational force are assuming a neutron star of 20km in diameter (average density of 8.35×1010 kg/cm3), where 5 ml has a mass of about 400 million metric tons. Incidentally, this would be one of the least dense neutron stars, with some denser ones producing as much as 200 BILLION times earth gravity at their surface. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#cite_note-35 This means that many of the grains of sand shown in this video are in fact, too large - but we had to used larger sand grains in order to see them in the video. Wild! For the size of the sand in our conversations, we used Wolfram Alpha's volume definition of 24.6 microliters. Here's our conversion chart:
5lm = 400,000,000 metric tons
1 grain of sand = 6,000 metric tons, or two Saturn V rockets / 1,238,000 (100lb) dumbbells
35 grains of sand = 214,000 metric tons, or the Wonder of the Seas (ship)
3717 grains of sand, or 1/16 a teaspoon = 23,000,000 metric tons, or 4 pyramids of Giza
Video Timestamps:
00:00 - Lifting a Neutron Star at the Gym
01:29 - What is a Neutron Star?
01:58 - Atoms 101
02:41 - Inside a Dying Star
03:26 - Weight on Earth
04:20 - Bending Light
Other Resources:
NASA gallery of Neutron Star Images - https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/category/neutronstars.html
Episode Credits:
Written, Directed, and Edited: Jared Belcher
3D Animation: Andy Belcher (instagram.com/andy__animates/)
2D Animation and Compositing: Jared Belcher
Original Theme Music: Branded.
Episode Music: "Allegiance" and "Static" by Duomo
Special Thanks: Mossy Creek Crossfit
Equipment Used:
iPhone 13 Pro
Tascam DR-10L Portable Digital Audio Recorder With Lavalier Microphone amzn.to/3pCXF0g
DJI Osmo Mobile 5 amzn.to/3QLFcuk
DJI Mavic Pro amzn.to/3cgOlw4
2022 MacBook Air (M2) amzn.to/3ADHtlC
2019 MacBook Pro
Autodesk Maya
Final Cut Pro
Apple Motion
Motion VFX Zoom Transition Pack 3
