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What happens whena tablespoon of neutron soup gets thrown out of the well of a neutron star? Does it suddenly expand to the size of everest? Where do the elec
by galangalalgol 4y ago
What happens whena tablespoon of neutron soup gets thrown out of the well of a neutron star? Does it suddenly expand to the size of everest? Where do the electrons come from?
- heavyset_go 4y agoI'd imagine some of the energy and degenerate matter consisting of neutrons would convert to protons and electrons, and nucleosynthesis would take place to form elements. I have no idea, though, but I'm pretty sure I watched a video about this.
- caf 4y agoIn terms of "where do the electrons come from", an ordinary neutron in free space has a half-life of about 10 minutes, decaying through beta decay which produces a proton, an electron and a neutrino.
- galangalalgol 4y agoThat sounds fairly energetic... So after 10min you'd have some odd mix of heavy elements probably approaching a decent fraction of the volume of everest. Half the volume of everest x (densityofgranite / densityoflead) That kind of expansion rate has to rival any explosion imaginable.
- ajross 4y agoIt's essentially a giant atomic nucleus, so absent a star's worth of gravity holding it together it's going to decay rapidly into stable isotopes. So essentially it would act more or less the same as a huge fission bomb of the same mass.