2023 20.74g Austria Silver 2023 20.74g Austria Silver Neutron Star PP PP

Consisting of three coins, The Uncharted Universe takes us to the deepest depths of the universe and gives us a fascinating glimpse of three physical-astronomical phenomena - after the Milky Way, you can explore black holes and even neutron stars.

The COTY (Coin of the Year) Awards for 2023-dated coins feature an impressive lineup of 100 coins, with 10 outstanding coins in each of 10 specific categories. The judging process has already begun, with over 100 experts casting their ballots to select one winner in each category. Following this, the same expert panel will conduct a second round of voting to determine the overall Coin of the Year, the most distinguished coin among the category winners.

The Austria Uncharted Universe: The Neutron Star coin was nominated for the Best Silver Coin of 2023. The "Best Silver Coin" category in the COTY Awards celebrates excellence in silver coin design and production. This category honors coins made of silver that demonstrate outstanding artistic quality, innovative design, and superior craftsmanship.

Coin Highlights:

Contains .666 oz of fine silver.

Packaged with a mint box along with a certificate of authenticity.

Mintage of 30,000 coins.

Obverse: The words "crust" and "core" are marked in German on the coin’s obverse. "Crab pulsar" is the name of a neutron star that was created from a supernova in the year 1054, while "1,4 M" refers to the neutron star’s solar mass, "30rps" to its rotation speed per second and "r~10km" to its radius.

Reverse: On the coin’s reverse, the neutron star bulges through a colored imprint and a stylized representation of its magnetic field.

Guaranteed by the Austrian government.

This coin is a fantastic addition to any collection. Add this 2023 Austria Silver €20 Uncharted Universe The Neutron Star coin to your cart today!

Featuring a semi-sphere in its center that curves inwards on one side and outwards on the other, the coin is designed to be a simplified representation of that unique galactic phenomenon – the neutron star. There are thought to be up to one billion neutron stars in the Milky Way. This figure is obtained by estimating the number of stars that have undergone a supernova explosion, a spectacular explosion of a massive star. Combined with gravitational collapse, this creates a compact and super-dense object known as a neutron star. After black holes, neutron stars are the densest stellar objects in the universe.

Series: Uncharted Universe

This is a unique coin for a unique phenomenon. Concave on one side and convex on the other, the black hole illustrates the funnel shape of these regions of space-time where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape from them. One way of envisaging a black hole is as a vortex that draws in everything in its immediate proximity. Once beyond the point of no return – known as the "event horizon" – the "singularity" awaits at the center. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose showed that this is a place where space-time curvature is infinite.

The interpretation of the black hole as a region of space from which nothing can escape was first published by American physics professor David Finkelstein in 1958. But it was not until 1971 that Cygnus X-1 became the first black hole to be named as such, having been identified by several researchers working independently.

Although storing vast amounts of energy, black holes do not emit light. For this reason, the first photograph of a black hole was not published until 2019 and, even then, only as an indirect image of the shadow it casts. No wonder that so much remains unclear about black holes. Among the most complex objects possible in our or any other universe, they are not only a challenge experimentally but also raise a multitude of fundamental questions about space and time.