3 ms·

How do those rod-shaped atoms, like hydrogen, interact with other hydrogens or other atoms? Can chemical reactions still even happen in the traditional sense?

DecoPerson 6y ago
Layman here. Most classes of stars are already hot enough that molecules are torn apart. The atoms are in a gas or plasma state. Pairs of atoms will pass through transient states that could be classed as “molecules” but they’re very short-lived. Electrons—a key part of chemical reactions—flow freely like in metal. Hydrogen atoms are just a single proton with some number of neutrons. I’m not sure if the proton itself is stretched (Is a gluon a particle like a proton is a particle??), or if the EM field around the proton is so influenced that electrons move around it like it’s a rod/cylinder.
yk 6y ago
Depends, chemistry looks very differently simply because in such environments it is better to think of an electron gas that moves in a magnetic field, and is slightly perturbed by the presence of nuclei, rather than thinking of electrons being bound in atoms and being slightly perturbed by a magnetic field. So you certainly have to recalculate all your reaction rates compared to laboratory conditions, and my guess would be, that in general the chemistry should look a lot more than reactions in plasmas, rather than normal (nicely stable) chemistry.
robocat 6y ago
The temperature is expected to remain above plasma temperatures even if a neutron star could cool for a billion years, so presumably normal chemistry couldn’t occur. https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/14387/what-happens-over-time-as-a-neutron-star-cools https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/14387/what-hap... The coldest neutron star detected “T < 42,000 Kelvin” : https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07998 https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07998 Disclaimer: I am not an astrophysicist.

DecoPerson 6y ago

Layman here. Most classes of stars are already hot enough that molecules are torn apart. The atoms are in a gas or plasma state. Pairs of atoms will pass through transient states that could be classed as “molecules” but they’re very short-lived. Electrons—a key part of chemical reactions—flow freely like in metal. Hydrogen atoms are just a single proton with some number of neutrons. I’m not sure if the proton itself is stretched (Is a gluon a particle like a proton is a particle??), or if the EM field around the proton is so influenced that electrons move around it like it’s a rod/cylinder.

yk 6y ago

Depends, chemistry looks very differently simply because in such environments it is better to think of an electron gas that moves in a magnetic field, and is slightly perturbed by the presence of nuclei, rather than thinking of electrons being bound in atoms and being slightly perturbed by a magnetic field. So you certainly have to recalculate all your reaction rates compared to laboratory conditions, and my guess would be, that in general the chemistry should look a lot more than reactions in plasmas, rather than normal (nicely stable) chemistry.

robocat 6y ago

The temperature is expected to remain above plasma temperatures even if a neutron star could cool for a billion years, so presumably normal chemistry couldn’t occur. https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/14387/what-happens-over-time-as-a-neutron-star-cools https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/14387/what-hap... The coldest neutron star detected “T < 42,000 Kelvin” : https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07998 https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.07998 Disclaimer: I am not an astrophysicist.