
Stellar collision confirms theoretical predictions about the periodic table - rstoj
https://www.nature.com/news/colliding-stars-spark-rush-to-solve-cosmic-mysteries-1.22829
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0xFFFE
Whenever I read about neutron stars, they are always too far away (like
millions of light years), so I did a quick search and found one closest to
earth about 250 to 1000 light years and apparently it is above the plane of
the milky way galaxy.

[https://www.space.com/4247-astronomers-find-closest-
neutron-...](https://www.space.com/4247-astronomers-find-closest-neutron-
star.html)

I wish we could watch these neutron stars and black holes more closely, we
know so little about the universe.

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Already__Taken
Making sure you don't miss this in that case:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt82NjSPAc8&disable_polymer=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt82NjSPAc8&disable_polymer=true)

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0xFFFE
Thank you for the link, it's amazing how quickly it cooled down. I thought it
would take hundreds of years for it to go from blue to red. But I guess since
the merger of the neutron star resulted in the formation of blackhole, It
could explain the rapid cooling down, a la endothermic reaction so to speak :)

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pavel_lishin
> They called the event GW170817, after the date it was detected.

I am _horrified_ by the date format in that naming convention.

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ColanR
I see no problem with that date. yy-mm-dd ensures that files are always
ordered correctly by date.

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bdamm
Not true in 2100.

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yorwba
The formula (year - 2000) * 10000 + month * 100 + day can perfectly
accommodate any future dates, until we change our calendar.

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wongarsu
But without zero-padding, it will sort wrong when using lexiographic order (as
is common). 1180101 would sort before 171204 in many contexts, even though it
should clearly come behind the latter.

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phkahler
Most interesting to me is that the signature detected in the gravitational
waves was up to 6 minutes long. With increased accuracy and quicker
notification, telescopes could be aimed at such collisions before they happen.
I never would have thought that was possible before.

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jakeogh
Any spectroscopic hints pro/con for an island of stability?

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greglindahl
Not a chance -- there's not enough to be measured.

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hyperpallium
I lack perspective here, but aren't neutron star collisions too rare to
account for all the gold and other >Fe elements on Earth?

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dnautics
That's what I thought too. Supernovae are probably at least 100x more common
and probably yield more per incident too.

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ChuckMcM
There are literally tons of gold and platinum streaming through space now,
just waiting to be picked up :-)

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cryptonector
And, if you just could, it would become worthless by its very abundance.

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coldcode
Diamonds are very common, yet somehow that fact is controlled.

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ams6110
When people talk about diamonds being rare, they are generally talking about
gemstone quality diamonds. Those, and the work needed to make them look like
gemstones, are not so common.

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daxfohl
It's kind of astounding given we're just dumb people on a dumb planet moving
at uninteresting speeds or distances or times that we can predict the result
of a neutron star collision and be right. Especially when our physics breaks
down at those energy and gravity levels.

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pdonis
_> Especially when our physics breaks down at those energy and gravity
levels._

No, it doesn't. Neutron stars seem like very dense objects with very strong
gravity to us, but their density and gravity is still well within the
boundaries where our current physical theories work well. As the accuracy of
these predictions illustrates.

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daxfohl
Okay, was wondering about that. Still, it's a _neutron friggin star_. A star,
made out of neutrons. Colliding with another. Galaxies away. And we got it
right. Down to very small details. The more I think about it, the more my mind
is blown.

Physics: what happens when neutron stars collide? vs CS: how do I exit vim? :)

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diegoperini
How do you really?

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KGIII
Reboot. The emacs solution seems to be they haven't figured out how to exit so
they just stay there.

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ams6110
Yes, but it doesn't matter because emacs can do anything worth doing.

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KGIII
Emacs is a great OS, but a lousy editor. ;-)

