Neutron star material

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 21:26:39

What if A 250 meter chunk of this stuff hit the Earth at 25 km per sec?

Neutron star
A neutron star has a mass of about 1.4 times the mass of the sun, but is not much bigger than a small city, about 15 km in radius.

A teaspoon of neutron star material would weigh about 10 million tons. The gravitational field is intense; the escape velocity is about 0.4 times the speed of light.

The collapsed star is so dense that electrons and protons do not exist separately, but are fused to form neutrons. The outer layers form a rigid crust surrounded by an atmosphere of a highly energetic electrons and excited atoms.

The neutron star acts like an enormous magnet, with the magnetic poles tipped at an angle to the axis of rotation. Like the Earth, the pulsar is surrounded by a magnetosphere, a region in which electrons and other particles are accelerated by the magnetic field. However, the magnetic field of the neutron star is much stronger than the Earth's and the electrons move at velocities close to the speed of light, emitting synchrotron radiation in a narrow beam along the direction of the magnetic poles.

Since nuclear fusion is no longer possible, the neutron star has no new source of internal energy generation. With time, its rotation should slow and its magnetic field should decrease. Unless the neutron is "spun-up", it will eventually become "invisible".

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-03 21:38:55

Well, the Earth would probobly be destroyed.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 21:43:30

Pretty darn scary. I think they need to try and find smaller objects that may hit Earth. If one of these are out there we may be doomed if it hits depending on the size of it.

Palomar · 2005-01-03 22:07:30

*ERRORIST, with all due respect, why are you so "into" fear scenarios? You can take that as a rhetorical question, i.e. something to ask and answer to yourself.

The neutron star nearest our Sun is 3.26 light years. There's no way it could move towards us (much less deposit material onto Earth) without our knowing of it well in advance. ::edit:: And also, the gravitational pull within a neutron star itself is so strong that a chunk of it couldn't simply break off and escape. ::end edit::

There are healthier and happier ways to preoccupy one's time than preoccupation with dread, doom and fear. Yes, there are threats to our safety and security, whether individually or collectively.

But please consider your health, blood pressure and your peace of mind.

--Cindy

P.S.: As Mark Twain once said, most of what we may fear never comes to pass anyway.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 22:31:56

But please consider your health, blood pressure and your peace of mind.

I am in great health and have peace of mind it is everyone else I am concerned with. The space telescope recently spotted one of these neutron stars traveling towards us.It won't reach us for 300 million years though. I am just worried about a fragment of this stuff hitting us. One fragment could hit tomorrow or a billion years from now. We need to consider these objects as well as comets and asteroids and we need to look for much smalller fragments. Perhaps, just a few FEET across.

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-03 22:42:10

The space telescope recently spotted one of these neutron stars traveling towards us.It won't reach us for 300 million years though.

I've just enough time for another coffee then

I am just worried about a fragment of this stuff hitting us.

How can a fragment escape from a Neutron star?

Graeme

GCNRevenger · 2005-01-03 22:49:14

Errorist, you are worrying entirely too much about this. Such an occurance is so unlikly that it can be completly ignored for the forseeable future... we are much more likly to be wiped out by the giant volcano under Yellowstone then we are a bit of Neutron star material.

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 22:51:27

How can a fragment escape from a Neutron star?

If another one hit it??

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-03 22:54:09

How can a fragment escape from a Neutron star?
If another one hit it??

ROTFLMAO

This is a joke, right?

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 23:12:38

Sounds funny. But it is not impossible.

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-03 23:17:53

Sounds funny. But it is not impossible.

Not good at probabilities, but whats the chances of two Neutron stars hitting each other, and then a fragment escaping to fly all that distance and hit Earth? We are talking so remote there's a better chance of me running the 3 minute mile.

If this happens I will happily sing the national anthem, naked from the top of the highest building in the country.

From a science standpoint, I'm not sure what would happen if two Neutron stars collided due to the already massive gravity involved. I'm not sure if anything could escape.

Graeme

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 23:24:36

I bet a few small pieces exist on Earth already. We just have not found any yet.

Perhaps, they exist in some of the red zones??????

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0307 … 30723.html

RobS · 2005-01-03 23:35:31

I don't think fragments of neutron star material can exist off of neutron stars. It takes the powerful gravity of a neutron star to hold the stuff together. Blast it off the star somehow and it explosively reverts to ordinary matter.

I think.

Then there's a fun science fiction plot if fragments are possible: mini-planets. I once wrote a novel about people living on a planetoid only 100 kilometers across with terrestrial gravity on the surface. They called their world Little Earth. It had oceans and mountain ranges, but the entire surface area was about the same as southern New England (a few tens of thousands of square kilometers). Of course, the planetoid's escape velocity was only about 3,000 kmph, so the place had to have a dome to keep in the atmosphere.

-- RobS

ERRORIST · 2005-01-03 23:41:31

It could be a new elememt on the element table worth searching for on Earth??? It would still be worth the search even on the moon.

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-03 23:43:56

But we already have a pretty good idea about what a Neutron star contains element wise - its old news.

Graeme

Trebuchet · 2005-01-04 03:06:38

Errorist, why do you always start weird, dumb topics? Honestly, you've been spamming the board with this kind of stuff for a month or two...

When neutron stars collide, they turn into a black hole and convert any leftover mass into energy. So you don't have the problem of fragments of neutron star material - which, freed of the overpowering gravity of the neutron star, would simply vaporize into a hail of free-flying neutrons - anyways, although the tremendous gamma- and x-ray explosion from the merging neutron stars would be messy enough on its own.

Besides, even if such mini-neutron star chunks could exist, worrying about it would be completely pointless. Trying to stop something that massive, dense, and presumably fast moving would be like trying to stop a speeding freight train by hitting a golf ball at it. Not going to happen. Actually, there's a good chance that if something that dense, small, and fast hit the earth, it wouldn't even really slow down and would shoot through the earth like a bullet through a cardboard box. Might be less destructive than a less massive, but much bigger in volume impactor.

SpaceNut · 2005-01-04 06:00:42

A chunk that could possibly come out of such a collision would most likely expand in the absence of the much larger gravity that it would no longer be under. Even if some were to get here after burning its way though the atmosphere it still would be the same composition as when it left the neutron star. Carbon compressed is still a diamond even from a neutron star. Can any one say dilithium crystal.. comes to mind when thinking of such things.

MarsDog · 2005-01-04 06:06:58

Can any one say dilithium crystal.. comes to mind when thinking of such things.

It could expand into popcorn ?

Or maybe a single element planet sized object ?

Pure platinum asteroid ?

GraemeSkinner · 2005-01-04 06:09:02

It could expand into popcorn ?

Its as likely as us getting hit by it anyway.

Graeme

Shaun Barrett · 2005-01-04 07:30:41

The question of what becomes of neutron-star-stuff when it is freed of the great majority of the massive gravity which formed it, is an interesting one.
Is there any reason to believe that neutrons created by crushing together protons and electrons in a monstrous gravity well will somehow resume their former composition without the intense gravity? I've never come across any reference to such a thing happening, even in theory, and I doubt it would occur.

With only neutrons, and no protons or electrons, there can be no elements as we know them.
Neutrons stick together in atomic nuclei but that's in the presence of one or more protons. As Trebuchet suggests, I suspect a fragment of neutron star would dissipate in a shower of free neutrons.
???
[Unless the original information which described the atoms that were destroyed by gravity to make up the neutron-star-stuff, is somehow preserved at a quantum level within the material and re-emerges to spontaneously reconstruct the original atoms.
But I'm just speculating way out of my league here. ]

ERRORIST · 2005-01-04 07:44:53

This is why we should search for a chunk of the stuff here so we can expand our knowlege of materials. We may never find a chunk of it but if we did It would greatly increase our knowlege of the universe.

Trebuchet,
Errorist, why do you always start weird, dumb topics? Honestly, you've been spamming the board with this kind of stuff for a month or two...

Just trying to increase my knowlege thats all no harm intended. Glad you joined in though!!

Here are other thoughts. Would it have a magnetic pole?
If so, would they make super magnets?

MarsDog · 2005-01-04 12:06:50

http://www.helicola.com/abstract.php]Force Beween Neutrons can change from positive to negative.

How does this interact with the internal makeup of the Neutron ?
How is energy conserved here ?

ERRORIST · 2005-01-04 13:48:06

Who knows what would happen? Perhaps, a gamma ray burst.

MarsDog · 2005-01-04 14:07:25

The star could become a http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/395689.stm]neutron bomb.

John Creighton · 2005-01-04 15:25:48

I bet whether it expands or contracts depends on the relative spacing between molecules. If the spacing is bellow 1.3 of what ever those units are in the chart MarsDog gave it will probably expand to a relatively stable state. If the spacing is between 1.4 to 2.6 perhaps it will stay relatively stable for a while if the spacing is greater then 2.8 it should fly apart. Of course there will be a lot of thermaldynamics going on and the fraction of neutrons that are not within 2.8 units of each other will probably slowly escape. The greater this fraction the more that will escape. I also think that electrons and protons will be created by collisions and many types of elements will form, I don’t know where the majority of these elements will lie and if they all can be found on the periodic table. I suspect that initially most of the elements will have a high atomic number and the average atomic number of elements of the chunk will gradually decreases as it expands. I also expect a nutron gas and hydrogen floating around the more solid chunk. Anyway if you want to blow a chunk of neutrons off a neutron star how about an antimatter missile. I agree such an object should be incredibly rare if one even exists in the universe at all. Perhaps one might of been created by a huge black hole ripping a neutron star apart.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#1 2005-01-03 21:26:39

Re: Neutron star material

#2 2005-01-03 21:38:55

Re: Neutron star material

#3 2005-01-03 21:43:30

Re: Neutron star material

#4 2005-01-03 22:07:30

Re: Neutron star material

#5 2005-01-03 22:31:56

Re: Neutron star material

#6 2005-01-03 22:42:10

Re: Neutron star material

#7 2005-01-03 22:49:14

Re: Neutron star material

#8 2005-01-03 22:51:27

Re: Neutron star material

#9 2005-01-03 22:54:09

Re: Neutron star material

#10 2005-01-03 23:12:38

Re: Neutron star material

#11 2005-01-03 23:17:53

Re: Neutron star material

#12 2005-01-03 23:24:36

Re: Neutron star material

#13 2005-01-03 23:35:31

Re: Neutron star material

#14 2005-01-03 23:41:31

Re: Neutron star material

#15 2005-01-03 23:43:56

Re: Neutron star material

#16 2005-01-04 03:06:38

Re: Neutron star material

#17 2005-01-04 06:00:42

Re: Neutron star material

#18 2005-01-04 06:06:58

Re: Neutron star material

#19 2005-01-04 06:09:02

Re: Neutron star material

#20 2005-01-04 07:30:41

Re: Neutron star material

#21 2005-01-04 07:44:53

Re: Neutron star material

#22 2005-01-04 12:06:50

Re: Neutron star material

#23 2005-01-04 13:48:06

Re: Neutron star material

#24 2005-01-04 14:07:25

Re: Neutron star material

#25 2005-01-04 15:25:48

Re: Neutron star material

Board footer