Astronomy has always captivated me, and after being introduced to the constellation Orion at a young age, I marveled at its steadfast loyalty as it returned each winter. The night sky seemed awesome and mystifying . . . I began researching and following the patterns of the moon and the night sky, as well as lunar and solar eclipses. I was thrilled when our family got a telescope . . . A neutron star is one of the densest objects in the universe, containing on average about 1.5 solar masses and having a radius of approximately 12 kilometers (Lattimer et al., 2004). For this reason, the neutron star may exhibit unique particle phenomena including superfluidity, superconductivity, and hyperon and quark-dominated matter, and provides many opportunities to study and test the theories of particle, nuclear, and dense matter astrophysics (Manchester et al., 2004). Despite the many significant advances in the field, there is still much that remains unknown regarding neutron stars, including their radii and shapes as they rotate (Shapiro et al., 2004). It is imperative that these properties be established before astronomers can use neutron stars to test more complex aspects of physics (Webb et al., 2007)…..

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• Astrophysics