Stars are powered by nuclear reactions that fuse hydrogen into helium. The fate of many stars, once most of the hydrogen is used up, is to collapse, under gravitational pull, into a neutron star. The force of gravity becomes so large that protons and electrons are fused into neutrons in the reaction p++e−⟶p++e−⟶ n+νn+ν. The entire star is then a tightly packed ball of neutrons with the density of nuclear matter.