What objects combine giant balls of neutrons, black holes, the search for aliens, and doomed stars? Apparently, a phenomena known as blitzars. Blitzars are a hypothetically thought of as a dying neutron star. If they exist they could be the answer to a mystery astronomers have been trying to solve. However, to understand blitzars, we must first understand neutron stars.
Neutron stars form when large starts die in gigantic explosions called supernovas. What's left over after a supernova is so massive that gravity works to pull all that mass into a black hole. But, when there is less stuff left, the gravity will force the electrons and protons from the core of the old stars into a dense ball of neutrons. This dense ball of neutrons is what is known as a neutron star. These neutron stars spin very quickly and have super strong magnetic fields. It is a hypothesized that a dying neutron star creates a powerful burst which is the blitzar.
