Strangelets | The Strange Matter

The Strange Matter

   Neutron stars are the densest things that aren't black holes. In their cores, we'd find the foremost dangerous substance in existence: Strange matter. A bizarre thing so extreme, that it bends the principles of the universe and will infect and destroy everything it comes into contact with or it could teach us about how the universe began. Maybe both. to know how extreme strange matter really is, we first got to get a couple of basics.

  what's a star , and the way does strange matter break the principles of the universe? to urge all of this into one article, we'll grossly oversimplify a couple of things, but we'll provide you with further reading if you would like more details. A star is what remains after a really massive star explodes during a supernova. When this happens, the star's core collapses under its own gravity with such a robust inward force that it squeezes nuclei and particles together violently. Electrons are pushed into protons, in order that they merge and switch into neutrons. All the "nothing" inside atoms is suddenly completely crammed with particles that basically don't need to be on the brink of one another , but haven't any choice. They desperately keep off against gravity, against the collapse. If gravity wins, they're going to become a region . If they win, they become a star .

   This makes neutron stars like giant atomic nuclei the dimensions of a city, but holding the mass of our Sun. And here, things get weird. The environment within the core of neutron stars is so extreme that the principles of atomic physics change. And this might cause a wierd and very dangerous substance. But let's not get before ourselves. We first got to know the principles before we find out how they will be broken. Protons and neutrons, the particles making up the nuclei of atoms, are made from smaller particles called quarks. Quarks really don't need to be alone. they're what we call confined. you'll attempt to separate them, but the harder you pull, the harder they struggle to tug themselves back together. If you employ tons of energy, they only use this energy to make new quarks.

   Quarks only exist together because the building blocks of other particles and haven't been observed by themselves. they are available in many sorts , but only two appear to form stable matter: the 'up' and 'down' quarks found in protons and neutrons. All other quarks seem to decay away quickly, but this might vary inside neutron stars. The forces operating in their cores are so extreme that they're actually almost like the universe shortly after the large Bang. star cores are like fossils, which may allow us to peer back in time to the start of everything. So learning how quarks behave inside a star may be a way of understanding the very nature of the universe itself. One hypothesis is that, inside a star core, protons and neutrons deconfine.

    All the particles crammed shoulder-to-shoulder dissolve and melt into a kind of bath of quarks. Uncountable numbers of particles become one giant thing made purely from quarks: Quark matter. A star made up of this is often called a Quark Star. Though from the surface , it's going to not look any different than a daily star . Now, we will finally mention the foremost dangerous substance. If the pressure inside a quark star is great enough, it's going to get stranger, literally. within the cores of neutron stars, a number of the quarks could also be converted into 'strange' quarks.

Strangelets

    Strange( Strangelets ) quarks have bizarre nuclear properties, and that they are heavier, and for the shortage of a far better word, stronger. If they happen , they might create strange matter. Strange matter could be the perfect state of matter, perfectly dense, perfectly stable, indestructible, more stable than the other matter within the universe. So stable that it can exist outside neutron stars. If this is often the case, we've a drag . it'd be infectious. each piece of matter it touches could be so impressed by its stability that it might immediately become strange matter, too. Protons and neutrons would dissolve and become a part of the quark bath, which frees energy and creates weirder matter.

The sole thanks to get obviate it might be to throw it into a region . on the other hand again, who cares? All of it's inside neutron stars, except when neutron stars hit other neutron stars or black holes. They spew tremendous amounts of their insides, a number of which could include little droplets of strange matter called strangelets. Strangelets are as dense because the core of a star . they might be really small, maybe even subatomic, but even the most important strangelets wouldn't be any bigger than a rocket. These strangelets would drift through the galaxy for millions or billions of years until they meet a star or planet accidentally . If one were to strike earth, it would immediately start converting it into strange matter. The more it converts, the more it would grow. Ultimately, all of the atoms making up earth would be converted. Earth would become a hot clump of strange matter, the dimensions of an asteroid. If a strangelet strikes the sun, it might collapse into a wierd star, eating through it like fire through a dry forest. This would not change the Sun's mass much, but it would become way less bright. 

  So Earth would freeze to death. And sort of a tiny virus, we'd haven't any thanks to see a strangelet coming. Worse still, some theories suggest strangelets are quite common, outnumbering all stars within the galaxy. The strangelets could've formed very early after the Big Bang, when it was as hot and dense as a neutron star core everywhere.

  They might be clumping around the gravity of galaxies as the universe expanded and evolved. Strangelets could even be so numerous and large , that they could actually be the substance we suspect holds galaxies together. But then again, maybe not. This is speculation. And the Earth and Sun and planets haven't been consumed during a wildfire of strangelets within the past few billion years.

So the odds seem good that it won't happen any time soon. Understanding these strange objects today may be the key to understanding the birth of our universe, and why it grew to look the way it does now. When scientists first started playing with magnets and wires and thinking about electrons, they had no idea how technology would evolve in the next hundred years. The scientists thinking about the cause of neutron stars and strange matter today may be setting up humans for a future beyond our wildest imaginations ...or maybe not. Time will tell.

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