
Nuclear pasta in neutron stars may be the strongest material in the universe - jnordwick
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nuclear-pasta-neutron-stars-may-be-strongest-material-universe
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ericfrenkiel
If you read the article and enjoyed the idea of immense mountains being just
centimeters tall, I highly recommend a scifi novel called “Dragon’s Egg” by
Robert L. Forward. He actually wrote a scientific research paper on neutron
stars and turned the paper into a novel! Hard science fiction at its best and
makes nuclear chemistry and physics delightfully approachable.

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maxxxxx
I really liked the idea of the book but to be honest I didn't like the story
so the book was pretty disappointing.

~~~
ericfrenkiel
To each his own! I found the way the author mapped human evolution into a
familiar-but-different life form based on nuclear chemistry just so “far out”
that it was a fun read.

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endymi0n
In a true Randall Munroe "What if?" fashion, I'd be interested if this stuff
would be stable enough to hold together on its own or if it needs the
absolutely extreme gravity and pressure around it to stick together and would
fall apart otherwise.

So if a teaspoon of Nuclear Neutron Pasta would really end up somewhere on a
meadow here on Earth, what would happen?

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andrepd
Nuclear pasta is a phenomenon that appears when electromagnetic repulsion and
strong force are more or less on the same strength. This only happens in a
relatively narrow band of (stupendously high) densities. So yes, nuclear pasta
does not exist anywhere in the universe outside of a ~100m band inside neutron
stars.

Source: I studied this for 2 years.

~~~
kilroy123
But... what _would_ happen if you instantly (and magically) transported a
teaspoon of it, into a random place on earth?

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andrepd
It would behave as regular baryonic matter (i.e. plain old atoms and
molecules) does at atmospheric pressure. Only it would release a _spectacular_
amount of energy due to how much it was compressed before.

How much energy? We can make a crude estimation: a neutron star has a
gravitational binding energy in the order of magnitude of a whopping _10 to
the 31_ megatons of TNT, and a radius of about 10km. Make a direct proportion
to your desired amount of pasta.

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throwaway2048
One of the coolest parts about neutron stars is their gravity is so extreme in
its warping of space-time, it lenses light around it and you can see more than
50% of their surface when you view them face on.

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JumpCrisscross
Could such “pasta” exist on its own? I always thought these exotic materials
depended on neutron stars’ immense gravity and pressure to keep from blowing
apart.

~~~
andrepd
Nuclear pasta is a phenomenon that appears when electromagnetic repulsion and
strong force are more or less on the same strength. This only happens in a
relatively narrow band of (stupendously high) densities. So no, nuclear pasta
does not exist anywhere in the universe outside of a ~100m band inside neutron
stars.

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beesKneesMan
At trillions of times the mass of water, I'd have to suspect that it has its
own gravity.

A one kilometer cube starts to approach earth mass, if you just ballpark
values based on the orders of magnitude relative to water.

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whatshisface
_Every_ object has its own gravity, no matter the shape or size[0]. This is
taken advantage of in sensitive experiments that measure the gravitational
attraction between human-scale objects[1]. The experiments are done to
determine Newton's constant, G, the constant governing the strength of
gravity.

[0] Even massless particles like photons have gravity, as it's actually energy
that bends space and not rest mass.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment)

~~~
stan_rogers
Note that demonstrating gravitational attraction with an apparatus _similar
to_ Cavendish's doesn't need to be nearly as precise or delicate - the hard
part wasn't _showing_ gravitational attraction, it was _measuring_ it so that
the mass of the Earth (and thus other celestial bodies) could be determined.
The simpler form of the experiment that merely shows that bodies attract one
another can be done in your living room (modulo pets and children). Several of
the anti-Flat-Earth YouTubers have done it, the point being to enable
flattards to do it for themselves (should they be so inclined) so they're not
relying on reptoid NASA Illuminati shills and their propaganda.

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polynomial
> "A strand of spaghetti snaps easily"

Just not into 2 pieces.

~~~
officialjunk
what a twist!

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saagarjha
> nuclear pasta could support mountains tens of centimeters tall

I’m curious how much potential energy is stored in such a “mountain”. Tens of
centimeters is _massive_ ; I’m sure the amount of energy must be enormous.

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elorant
Power as in electricity wouldn't be that much. Power as in heat could be mind
boggling. Temperature on a neutron star could be 10^12 Celsius.

~~~
jacquesm
Potential energy is mgh.

Nothing to do with electricity or temperature.

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domparise
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_potential_energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_potential_energy)

~~~
jacquesm
'Neutron stars'... this is not about Electric Potetial Energy so that link is
pointless.

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subcosmos
See, the pastafarians weren't crazy at all. They just believed in a version of
string theory that was before its time.

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fernly
Definitely going to show in "Science or Fiction" in next weeks SGU...

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aruggirello
So much for taking a teaspoon of it. :(

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moocowtruck
perfect place to get materials for my hammer

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warent
To me, neutron stars are one of the most awe-inspiring astronomical objects.
However...

> "Al dente"

> "Previously, scientists didn’t know how large a mountain nuclear pasta could
> support."

This must be one of the most pop-sci articles I've ever seen.

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time-of-flight
I don't think it's egregious at all. We use terms like "gnocchi phase",
"lasagna phase", and neutron-star mountains regularly in the nuclear-matter
literature, so these aren't indicative of any pop-sci "massaging" by the
author.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Naming things is a hard problem for computer programmers, but not for
physicists. For them it's all fun!

~~~
greglindahl
It's not all fun for astrophysicists: the ApJ editors are pretty strict with
trying to keep cute names out of the literature. One of my profs at grad
school went through quite a bit of effort to get WIMPs as a name, publishing
several posters and doing conference talks before submitting to ApJ for the
first time.

~~~
DiabloD3
WIMPs vs MACHOs is fucking hilarious.

Although, sadly, I _think_ both have been exhausted as options for the dark
matter search. Then again, there has been like 140 dark matter/energy papers
this year, and I haven't read them all.

