A few posts ago, I promised that I’ll write another post just about Strange matter just because it is very, very strange and could not be fitted in the Neutron star post or else it would be really long.
Inside the core of a Neutron star, there could be something termed Strange matter. It could infect everything in the universe or teach us how the universe was born, maybe both. Before I continue, you should read my post about Neutron stars here. The forces inside the core of a Neutron star are very strong indeed and they’re so strong that they alter the rules of nuclear physics, this can lead to a really weird and dangerous substance called strange matter but before I talk about that, I’ll tell you about quarks. Protons and Neutrons are made of Quarks. Quarks don’t like being alone so they’re joined by gluons, when you try to pull them apart, they use that energy to create new quarks. These quarks are the building blocks of other particles. We haven’t observed Quarks alone. Quarks come in many types but only the up and the down quarks can create stable matter because other types of Quarks seem to decay quickly. This is what is changed in a Neutron star. The forces in the core of a Neutron are so strong that the forces are similar to the universe just after the big bang. So learning how quarks behave in the core of a Neutron star is a way of understanding the nature of the universe. That sounds like sci-fi but it isn’t. One hypothesis is that protons and neutrons deconfine inside the core of a Neutron star and that means that there are deconfined quarks inside the core of a Neutron star. That makes the core of a Neutron star a big ball made of just Quarks. That’s Quark matter. A star made of this is called a Quark star but it won’t look any different from a Neutron star. When the forces in that Quark star skyrocket, The Quarks start becoming Strange Quarks. These strange Quarks are bizarre and “stronger”. These little things can create strange matter and that matter could be the ideal state of matter, Perfectly Dense, Perfectly Stable, Indestructible. That will simply make it more stable than any matter in the universe. It could be so stable that it could exist outside Neutron stars, I hope that’s not true because if it is then we are in huge trouble. Anything that will touch strange matter will turn into Strange matter. Protons and Neutron will dissolve and become strange matter which will free energy and make more Strange matter. To destroy this stuff, we will have to launch into a black hole but why? It only exists inside Neutron stars right? Well, no. When two Neutron stars collide with each other, they catapult out their insides and some of those could be strangelets. Strangelets? What is that? You ask in your best-scared voice! Well, Strangelets are little droplets of Strange matter and their as dense as the core of Neutron stars. These devastating things can be subatomic or as big as a football field. These little monsters will drift around in the universe until they meet a planet or a star. If a Strangelet hits Earth, it would immediately start converting everything on Earth and Earth itself into Strange matter and soon the Earth will go from being a beautiful planet to being a hot ball of Strange matter with the size of an Asteroid. If a Strangelet shoots into the Sun, It will collapse and the Strange matter will eat through it like a matchstick burning itself. The mass of the Sun won’t be changed but it would not be bright anymore so the Earth will freeze and like a tiny virus, we won’t see it coming. Some theories suggest that Strangelets are more common than stars. These Strangelets could have been formed right after the big bang when everywhere was like the core of a Neutron star. Strangelets could be the dark matter that we think hold galaxies together but maybe not because we don’t know of planets that have been eaten by Strange matter. All this is speculation though.
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Bye!
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