4 ms·

Love me some magnetars. Gonna nitpick here, a piece of the article claims that if you fell off a neutron star mountain 1-2cm tall, by the time you hit the groun

by jquery 4y ago

Love me some magnetars. Gonna nitpick here, a piece of the article claims that if you fell off a neutron star mountain 1-2cm tall, by the time you hit the ground you'd be traveling at half the speed of light. This appears to be false. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#:~:text=The%20gravitational%20field%20at%20a,invisible%20rear%20surface%20become%20visible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#:~:text=The%20gra.... "If an object were to fall from a height of one meter on a neutron star 12 kilometers in radius, it would reach the ground at around 1400 kilometers per second".

cbozeman 4y ago
"If an object were to fall from a height of one meter on a neutron star 12 kilometers in radius, it would reach the ground at around 1400 kilometers per second". Good to know... instead of being instantly obliterated into dust, I just get liquified.
- jquery 4y ago
  Oh it's much worse than that. "However, even before impact, the tidal force would cause spaghettification, breaking any sort of an ordinary object into a stream of material."
  - Daub 4y ago
    `spaghettification'... mmmmmmm
jjcm 4y ago
I think the wikiped article is citing the velocity you’d have purely under the gravitational pull. That calculation likely doesn’t include the additional velocity given from the magnetic pull of magnetaurs. Given that magnetism is a stronger force, I don’t think the claim is disproven by the citation on Wikipedia.
- jquery 4y ago
  That by itself would be extremely interesting, but the article text is: “What happens inside a magnetar is a matter of pure speculation. Physicists think that the surface of a magnetar is covered in a shell of heavy atomic nuclei and free electrons. Because of the intense gravity [em. added], these surfaces are incredibly smooth; the highest "mountains" will only be a couple of centimeters tall. But don't think of them as trivial. If you were to fall off one of those mountains, by the time you reached the bottom, you would already be traveling at half the speed of light” Such a paragraph doesn’t give me confidence they did the math including magnetism, especially considering the extraordinary claim it would imply… that the magnetic field would have multiple orders of magnitude more strength than gravity. I think it doesn’t pass the sniff test, such immense downward force would instantly turn the neutron star into a black hole.

by jquery 4y ago

cbozeman 4y ago

"If an object were to fall from a height of one meter on a neutron star 12 kilometers in radius, it would reach the ground at around 1400 kilometers per second". Good to know... instead of being instantly obliterated into dust, I just get liquified.

jquery 4y ago
Oh it's much worse than that. "However, even before impact, the tidal force would cause spaghettification, breaking any sort of an ordinary object into a stream of material."
- Daub 4y ago
  `spaghettification'... mmmmmmm

jjcm 4y ago

I think the wikiped article is citing the velocity you’d have purely under the gravitational pull. That calculation likely doesn’t include the additional velocity given from the magnetic pull of magnetaurs. Given that magnetism is a stronger force, I don’t think the claim is disproven by the citation on Wikipedia.

jquery 4y ago
That by itself would be extremely interesting, but the article text is: “What happens inside a magnetar is a matter of pure speculation. Physicists think that the surface of a magnetar is covered in a shell of heavy atomic nuclei and free electrons. Because of the intense gravity [em. added], these surfaces are incredibly smooth; the highest "mountains" will only be a couple of centimeters tall. But don't think of them as trivial. If you were to fall off one of those mountains, by the time you reached the bottom, you would already be traveling at half the speed of light” Such a paragraph doesn’t give me confidence they did the math including magnetism, especially considering the extraordinary claim it would imply… that the magnetic field would have multiple orders of magnitude more strength than gravity. I think it doesn’t pass the sniff test, such immense downward force would instantly turn the neutron star into a black hole.