ANSWERS: 2
  • It's been a while, but I think a black hole is formed from the collapse of a star of 7 or more solar masses, and a neutron star from the death of a star of about the size of our sun.
  • The dividing line between a neutron star and a black hole is about 2.5 solar masses. So, if enough mass were added to a neutron star to tip it over this limit, then it would collapse down into a black hole. This is according to currently accepted ideas of stellar mechanics. However, there is beginning to be speculation about another intermediate from that will occur before the mass exceeds 2.5 solar masses. This intermediate form is call a quark star. In such a stellar corpse, the force of gravity gets to the point of crushing the neutrons into their constituent particles, quarks. At the moment the existence of these bodies is still theoretical and highly controversial. I don't know where the dividing line is for the masses of quark star. It is possible that the astrophysicist haven't worked that out yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_star http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0211/

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