If you could teleport a chunk from a neutron star or white dwarf far away, what would happen to it once it “materialized”? Would it depend on what sort of elements collapsed to form the stellar remnant in the first place? If so, what would happen if it were made of iron? Would it puff out into a large iron sphere?
Thanks,
Rob
Well, it wouldn’t be made of iron, or any other specific element. White dwarfs ae made of electron-degenerate matter and neutron stars of neutronium.
I don’t know for sure, but my feeling is that it would explode, eventually largely becoming atoms of regular matter. It is just gravity that keeps these things so compressed.
As I understand it, getting a chunk would be the hard part. I don’t think there is any feasible mechnism for this to happen.
Now that we are well into the realm of the hypothetical, I eagerly await answers from the physics gurus.
On reflection, perhaps our best guess would be to look at what happens in a planetary nebula following a supernova. After all, that is the result of a star with not enough mass to form a neutron star – a chunk as it were.
Result: a full assortment of elements and isotopes distributed according to the principles of nuclear stability and possible nuclear reaction sequences.
A teaspoon of neutron star would violently expand once the gravitational pressure was removed, killing anyone who was near it. The neutrons would then undergo neutron decay and produce a nuclear force greater than trillions of nuclear bombs.
If I can recall a similiar thread while lurking some time ago one of the smart physics-ey people felt sure that neutron matter with the brakes turned off would first expand into some kind of super annoyed plasma and as it cooled down would turn into a majority of iron and a minority of other heavy metals. I think that person might have been Chronos.
Rx: One tsp qd to treat erectile dysfunction.
Best (if possibly the only) way to get some free material would be to smack two neutron stars together. That would appear to free a significant amount. What you then get is a heck of a lot of gamma rays, and possibly a slew of heavy elements, including gold. Possibly accounting for the real mechanism for the creation of heavy elements, as opposed to supernovae.
Interesting article. It seems to imply that the crust of a neutron star is made of ordinary matter. How thick is it? I was also curious to know what would happen if you let it expand in space. It sounds like it would be to energetic to coalesce into a planet and would instead condense into hydrogen and become part of the medium. Is that about right?
Earlier thread And inside it is a link to an even earlier thread.
You could just check after Peter Dinklage or Conleth Hill are done with the, uh, throne…
Sorry, I know this is GQ but I just couldn’t resist…
I think that counts as ‘super-annoyed’, yes.
So you would want to have a fire extinguisher handy, wear safety goggles, step back, and handle it with a pair of tongs, right?
White dwarfs are iron already (well, mostly; there are of course other things mixed in). Of course, it’s not iron in any form recognizable from Earth, since the atoms are arranged in a very different way… but the atoms are still iron atoms.
Neutron stars, as they are, are not (mostly) made of atoms. If neutron star were removed from the extreme conditions that make it possible, it would convert back into atoms. Way back when when I said that the atoms it’d convert into would be mostly iron, that was an educated guess. While my education on this subject is pretty good, don’t take that over actual research.
In either case, if you separate neutron star or white dwarf material from its natural environment, the first thing you’re going to get will be a really big explosion.
It depends on what you mean both by “crust” and by “ordinary matter”. There are many layers, and as you go deeper, each layer is less “ordinary” in some way than the one above it.
Maybe, at least get someone to hold your beer first.