"Nuclear Macaroni" sounds like a delicacy prepared by molecular cooks, but it's actually light-years away (literally) from pasta in the kitchen. This peculiar noodle is pressed under the crust of a neutron star. In one study, researchers tested its intensity with a powerful computer simulation and found that it was the most intense substance in the universe.
Illustration: Radiation from the pulsar PSR B1509-58, a fast-spinning neutron star that makes the surrounding gas X-rays glow (golden, from Chandra) and illuminates other parts of the nebula, here visible in infrared (blue and red, from WISE).
So, how did nuclear macaroni become a cosmic super macaroni? This is because it is produced under conditions like a pressure cooker inside a neutron star.
Neutron stars are the corpses of massive stars that run out of fuel and explode in the form of supernovae. Although these tiny rotating bodies are only a dozen miles wide, they also gather in the full mass of our sun. They are so dense that only one teaspoon of neutron star material has the mass of a mountain on Earth! Neutrons are not made up of "normal" matter, but of degenerate matter—dense neutrons that are pressed together under extremely strong gravity.
The extreme gravity of neutron stars causes the outer layer to freeze crust-like material and wrap around a liquid nucleus. Beneath the crust, a powerful force is created between the neutrons and protons inside the neutron star's material, causing the neutron star's material to take on some striking shapes, such as long cylinders and planes. Astrophysicists refer to these shapes as "lasagna," "spaghetti," and "dumplings," collectively known as nuclear pasta. Those of us who love wideface are eager to know how nuclear pasta is formed.
Matthew Kaplan, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University, said in a statement: "The strength of the crust of neutron stars, especially the strength of the bottom of the crust, is related to a large number of astrophysical problems, but at the moment little is known about these problems. ”
To make it easier to understand these jumbled questions, Kaplan and his team created the most complex computer simulation ever performed on the shells of neutron stars to understand how they deform and break. Experiments have shown that nuclear macaroni is far harder than you think, and it is the strongest known substance in the universe.
Illustration: A neutron star at the center of a crab nebula.
Capland added: "Our findings are valuable to astronomers studying neutron stars. The outer layers of neutron stars are part of our actual observations, so we need to understand this in order to understand astronomical observations of these stars. ”
This is especially important because physicists can now measure gravitational waves: ripples in space-time caused by the rotation, collision and merger of massive cosmic objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Therefore, the shell of a neutron star is crucial for scientific understanding. In fact, an August 2018 study published in Physical Review Letters suggested that isolated neutron stars may produce their own faint gravitational waves by forming hard "mountains" over the Earth's crust. As the neutron star rotates, these mountains interfere with space-time like a propeller across a calm lake, producing a constant source of gravitational waves that we might detect in the future.
"Under extreme conditions, a lot of interesting physical phenomena are happening here, so understanding the physical properties of neutron stars is one way for scientists to test their theories and models," Kaplan said. "With this result, many questions need to be revisited." How big a mountain can you build on a neutron star before the crust breaks and collapses? What will it look like? Most importantly, how can astronomers observe it? ”
So, the next time you cook pasta, take a moment to think about the mountain of nuclear pasta, which can give you more insight into the nature of neutron stars.
1. WJ Encyclopedia
2. Astronomical terms
3. science.howstuffworks
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