Can anyone describe why Neutron stars are more mysterious / confusing than say a black hole?
A black hole seems to be just the next "step" in terms of something super-massive, but then why are neutron star's more of a mystery?
A black hole seems to be just the next "step" in terms of something super-massive, but then why are neutron star's more of a mystery?
By contrast, although neutron stars are less "extreme", they end up in a regime where the physics becomes much more difficult. The gravity is strong enough that you still need general relativity, but because the object is extended rather than a singularity, there's also a bunch of "stuff" which needs to be described as well. This means that you need to add in quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics. Furthermore, it's thought that at these densities you end up with some sort of a superfluid which means you need fluid dynamics and statistical physics to model its behavior, all of which is extremely difficult.
That said, there is another sense in which we could say that black holes are actually more mysterious than neutron stars. Although the physics of neutron stars is very complicated, we at least know what all the fundamental equations are. In the case of black holes if we want to understand physics near the singularity we would need a theory of quantum gravity which we currently don't have.