xkcd what if neutron star

How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? 2. After 100 years, we'd be experiencing over six gees of gravity. 16. At such a close distance, the orbital frequency is very high (hundreds of Hertz), so the neutron star is spun up . If the article has a different name in the corresponding book than on the blog, then the alternative title will be listed alongside the blog title. [5]Lawrence Grybosky, Thermal Expansion and Contraction. Order here! Various ideas were put forward to explain this, including the idea that the ocean basins were rifts that opened in the surface of a previously-smooth Earth as it expanded. The idea of neutrino radiation damage reinforces just how big supernovae are. All human structures will stay. Join us on an imaginary adventure grounded in scientific theory through time, space and chance, as we ask what if some of the most fundamental aspects of our existence were different.Feedback, inquiries and suggestions: https://underknown.com/contact xkcd what if neutron star Home; home; After this point, it would collapse into something like a sputtering white dwarf or neutron star, and thenif its mass kept increasingeventually become a black hole. [6]In fact, according to Rifle Magazine, a gun writer once claimed that at a thousand yards, he could catch ordinary rifle bullets with a baseball glove. This is the same effect you observe when an emergency vehicle passes . although it still periodically makes the rounds on YouTube. A bigger projectile can go further. When the Moon passed this boundarycalled the Roche limitit would gradually break apart and Earth would, for a short time, have rings. If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a . Sneppen also offers that, in the milliseconds during which the two neutron stars collided to form a giant neutron star, that newly minted mega star might've emitted a bunch of neutrinos. Overwhelmingly Large Telescope xkcd comics i enjoy . "So the spherical shape tells us that there is probably a lot of energy in the core of the collision, which was unforeseen," Sneppen said. They are extremely dense and no longer undergo nuclear fusion. 172.68.24.118 13:53, 18 September 2020 (UTC), Um, I didnt have to solve a catchpa to edit. Generally, it turns into heat. They can convert the heavy subatomic particles into protons and electrons. neutron star: [noun] a dense celestial object that consists primarily of closely packed neutrons and that results from the collapse of a much larger stellar body. feed 2022 . This 'infographic' chart purports to be a comparative guide to various star types, often described by a basic color, which is something that even naked-eye astronomy has determined, and may be qualified as 'dwarf' or 'giant' to describe relative sizes. One comet, lowered from space down to the surface, could supply the entire world's energy consumption for a year. A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing 67 comments What If? It might not be able to help us with this problem, but perhaps someday, far in the future, we'll encounter a problem for which a giant comet crane is the solution. That was unexpected. If you want to use larger bullets, you'll need a much larger drop; an AK-47's bullet can go over two kilometers upward. Most other clocks would keep working fine. Hall thrusters go argon with Starlink V2 mini. We can use the Doppler effect to measure the orbital motion of a pulsar. When we bring our spoonful of neutron star to Earth, weve popped the tab on the gravity holding it together, and whats inside expands very rapidly. What If? Sunday, SpaceX shared photos of a stack of ~790 kg Starlink V2 "minis". Answer (1 of 22): Summary - This is fictional. See table below. The nature of matter under these conditions is a decades-old unsolved problem. xkcd.com; what if? Small chunks of ice falling from space disintegrate and boil away before they reach the ground, warming the upper atmosphere. is based on his blog of the same name that answers unusual science questions from readers in a light-hearted way that is scientifically grounded. Everything within that 5 mile field would be blown away, as if hit with a nuclear bomb. "Sir, is this container under 3 ounces?" "Not sure, how much blood is there in a church mouse?" Reply . Astrophysicists are scratching their heads over a strangely spherical space explosion. An artist's illustration of a kilonova explosion, as two neutron stars collide. Blue giant: 2-400 R; 2-300 M, 8000-60000 K, 15-10000000 L. Bottom line: Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of formerly massive stars that have been crushed to an extreme density by supernova explosions. Neutron stars cram roughly 1.3 to 2.5 solar masses into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers (12 miles) across. "In conclusion, no statistically significant present expansion rate is detected by our study within the current measurement uncertainty of 0.2 mm yr1. It explains that during certain supernovae, the collapse of a stellar core into a neutron star, 10 57 neutrinos can be released (one for every proton in the star that collapses to become a neutron). Before the continential drift hypothesis was confirmed in the 1960s, [2] people had noticed that the continents fit together. Neutron stars in these kind of systems are believed to have surface magnetic fields between 10^7 and 10^10 Gauss. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. The release of magnetic energy could cause the matter in the explosion to be distributed more spherically. It's not actually enough to substantially warm the planetEarth's surface temperature is dominated by the atmosphere and the Sunbut it would lead to more volcanoes, more earthquakes, and faster tectonic movement. Order here! Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Its protons and electrons have fused together to create neutrons under the pressure of the collapse. This effect can be seen, dramatically, when a bullet is fired at ice. This is probably a case of artistic license. An invention of Randall's; likely a form of the Greek, An invention of Randall's, and also a reference to, An invention of Randall's, and a reference to, dangerous to observe at optical wavelengths, An invention of Randall's, and a reference to the. It premiered on August 11, 2021 and concluded on October 6, 2021. After the first day, the Earth would have expanded by 864 meters. Dig down, and the pressure increases relentlessly. Time is the only remedy for such puzzling cosmic mysteries. feed 2022 . Supernovae[4]"Supernovas" is also fine. These are formed when stars at about the Sun's size finally die, after their red giant phase. It would have lost its upward momentum, but not its rotational momentum; it would still have the spin given to it by the barrel of the gun. This theory was never very widespread,[3]It turns out it's kind of dumb. Anybody know why? Neutron stars are the densest things besides black holes. If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x). If your scale has a precision of more than two decimal places, you need to calibrate it with a test weightthe force of gravity at the scale factory isn't necessarily the same as the force of gravity at your house. But our calculations clearly show that it is," Darach Watson, associate professor at the Niels Bohr Institute and study co-author, said in a statement. Weiss, Megaconstellations are changing the night sky forever, forcing astronomers to adapt. That star can either be completely destroyed, become a black hole, or become a neutron star.The outcome depends on the dying star's mass and other factors, all of which shape what happens when stars explode in a supernova.. Neutron stars are among the densest objects in the cosmos. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. [6]Mass is proportional to radius cubed, and gravity is proportional to mass times inverse square of radius, so radius3 / radius2 = radius. [9]Although I wouldn't trust the elevators. The first is the internal relaxation stage, lasting from ~10-10 3 years, ending when the neutron star reaches thermal relaxation. The mass sun is 400 times heavier than the mass of the moon. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. For most of them, the limiting factor isn't weight, but wind. This is a list of What If? Mount Thor, which you may remember from question #51, features a vertical drop of 1,250 meters. Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you. Eventually, they would have to break up, right? :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 03:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC), Let me know what you think. Munroe states on the comic's website that the name of the comic is not an initialism but "just a word with no phonetic pronunciation".. GPS timing is incredibly precise; of all the problems in engineering, it's one of the only ones in which engineers have been forced to include both special and general relativity in their calculations. More active plate tectonics might be good for life. A sugar cube of neutron star material weighs as . By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. When stars at about the Sun's size begin to run out of fusion fuel, they expand to become red giants, and the outer shells expand and cool. [5]Although letting a comet slowly decay on the surface would definitely be preferable to a high-speed impact, as any dinosaur from the end of the Cretaceous can tell you. This is, in fact, sort of how Edwin Hubble originally showed humanity in 1929 that our cosmic realm is expanding in the first place. [4]Floor water. Is political science a good major for law? In addition to dust and water, they contain a small amount of CO2, which would be released into the atmosphere as the comet melted. A neutron star forms when a main sequence star with between about eight and 20 times the Sun's mass runs out of hydrogen in its core. In fact, it's honestly sort of impressive to find a solution that would actively make the problem worse in so many different ways. The story icomes from a National Geographic video. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Neutron star matter is completely optically thick to photons. The "bullet catch" is a common magic trick in which a magician appears to catch a fired bullet in mid-flightoften between their teeth. and How To provides his best answers yet to the weirdest questions you never thought to ask. Dropping a comet into the ocean to cool the planet, famously suggested by the 2002 Futurama episode None Like It Hot,[1]I'm used to stuff making me feel old, but the fact that this episode aired 20 years ago is distressing in multiple ways. You get the point. While you might not notice the increased gravity just yet, you'd notice the expansion. Planning to ride a fire pole from the moon back to Earth? At least I think. If you weighed 70 kg when the expansion started, you'd weigh 88 kg now. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. When she's not at her desk, she's trying (and failing) to raise her online chess rating. At this point, even the strongest humans would only be able to walk with great difficulty. This heat energy would be about 100 times greater than the energy needed to bring even a very cold comet up to room temperature, so a comet falling from space would heat the Earth 100 times more than it cooled it. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances. Not only would the ground (and atmosphere) be rising toward them, but the increased gravity would also cause their orbit to slowly shrink. 2.9K. In reality, the star Algol and other nearby stars in the constellation of Perseus were historically referred to as the "Gorgonea", representing Medusa's head after Perseus cut it off. book series or on the blog. This would be similar to the situation on Earth billions of years ago, when we had more radioactive material and thus a hotter mantle. It would just take a lot of patience. In true xkcd tradition, this is taken beyond reality. If you have a math background, it's sort of like seeing the expression "ln(x)e"it's not that, taken literally, it doesn't make sense, but it's hard to imagine a situation where it would apply. That's why the phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" sounds weirdit mixes scales in an incongruous way. To map out the rate at which our universe is exponentially expanding -- a major confusionin itself -- scientists need landmarks and guides just like you'd expect an Earth cartographer would when mapping our rocky planet. If you set the comet on land, it would soak up heat from the atmospherewhich contains much less stored heat than the oceansbriefly cooling the air by an average of one or two thousandths of a degree. #HowTheUniverseWorksA neutron star is one of the most dangerous objects in the universe. 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! Although there are some black holes with a mass of 70 times the sun). New York: Basic Books, 2012. That's why this is a neat question; supernovae are unimaginably huge and neutrinos are unimaginably insubstantial. The CO2 released from the comet would raise the temperature of the Earth for centuries. The physicist who mentioned this problem to me told me his rule of thumb for estimating supernova-related numbers: However big you think supernovae are, they're bigger than that. This stylized animation shows the structure of a neutron star. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". At some point, our growing Earth would reach the point where adding more mass causes it to contract, rather than expand. Death from Above. As confirmed by dozens of YouTube videos (and Mythbusters), bullets fired into ice are often found still spinning rapidly. The way seafloor spreading and magnetic pole reversal neatly confirmed each other is one of my favorite examples of scientific discovery at work. Only small insects (and sea animals) would be physically able to move around. Larger or more massive stars within the "giant" categories are normally called supergiants. [2]I'd like to remind everyone that while I write sometimes about the interesting physics of bullets, I'm not an authority on firearms safety. articles, published either in Randall Munroe's What If? Core collapse supernovae happen to giant stars, so if you observed a supernova from that distance, you'd probably be inside the outer layers of the star that created it. Her favorite movies are Dunkirk and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. A 3D illustration of a neutron star in the nebula. Breathing would be difficult. [5]Karam, P. Andrew. "@xkcd Reminds me of the Neutron Star cocktail from "What If?"" Remember that hypothetical crane that lets you lower comets to the surface? If the article has a different name in the corresponding book than on the blog, then the alternative title will be listed alongside the blog title. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". In the scenario where the atmosphere isn't expanding, the air would become thin enough to be difficult to breathe even at sea level. Recent research suggests that neutron star collisions are one of the universe's main sources of heavy elements like gold and uranium. Since you're moving steadily upward at 1 cm/s, you woudn't feel any kind of ongoing acceleration. I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it. And by that point, you may find you've attracted some attention. Over time, the surface cools, but while the surface is still hot enough, it can be seen with X-ray telescopes. Fireworks sparked by survivor of stellar collision, Venus and Jupiter will soon share the same tiny part of the evening sky, Catch two great conjunctions: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, A new place to look for alien life: The photosynthetic habitable zone, Observe the constellation Auriga: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Zodiacal light and how to see it: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Explore the constellation Orion: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Mars passes behind the Moon: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF): This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Venus-Saturn Conjunction: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, My First Telescope: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, Preview: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher, STARMUS VI: The out-of-this-world science and arts festival will see speakers including Chris Hadfield and Kip Thorne celebrate 50 years of exploration on Mars, Queen guitarist Brian May and David Eicher launch new astronomy book. At what point do these two unimaginable things cancel out to produce an effect on a human scale? . This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. These stellar beasts, made mostly of neutrons, are basically ultra-dense cosmic corpses roaming around space and, with incomprehensibly strong gravitational fields, torturing everything in their paths. Where are the best places to see the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses? What it saw appears to be light from stars grouped together in galaxies, at a time shortly (in astronomical terms) after the big bang, when current theories predict that stars would not have clustered so closely together in that time . articles, published either in Randall Munroe's What If? 172.68.24.130 11:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC), No, not really. Geologic activity would also accelerate. No observers of any of these celestial bodies have been petrified. Inbox, #3, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, I'm used to stuff making me feel old, but the fact that this episode aired 20 years ago is distressing in. We do not sell, rent or trade our email lists. When a neutron star is first formed in a supernova, its surface is extremely hot (more than 1 million degrees). Join Us in Tucson for Our Annual Public Star Party! The - talk stalk 11:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC), Is the scale correct for the real stars? Stretching a 40,000-kilometer line an extra 6.28 meters is pretty negligible. Surface gravity would only have gone up by 0.4%, rather than 1.2%, since surface gravity is proportional to radius. You'd have to grab the bullet firmly; otherwise, it might jump out of your hand. Virtually every mountainside would see massive landslides as material sought out a shallower angle of repose. 4 (2002): 491-499. 718-719 of the IPCC WG1 AR5 report for more. Inbox, #2, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? DeathNoteRs 7 yr. ago. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the same time? But what if we took just a spoonful of it and transpo. [3]If you want to be mean to first-year calculus students, you can ask them to take the derivative of ln(x)e dx. Surprisingly, most skyscrapers would hold up fine under much higher gravity. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Star Sand February 11, 2014. Ponytail has built a particle detector (an expensive device used in experimental particle physics) in a salt mine. "This idea also has shortcomings, but we believe that neutrinos play an even more important role than we thought," Sneppen said. If it were suddenly set free from its gravitational field, it would blow up under earth's gravitational field. Delivered on weekdays. [4]As it turns out, the ocean is expanding, since it's getting warmer. [1]This was confirmed by Mythbusters in episode 4 of Season 4. Okay, if you insist. Small chunks of ice falling from space disintegrate and boil away . A tablespoon of neutron star weighs more than 1 billion tons (900 billion kg) the weight of Mount Everest. Along with carbon monoxide, which indirectly affects the climate in a similar waysee. 162.158.103.125 11:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Teal Sphinx? If it's going fast enough, a feather can absolutely knock you over. A neutron star is effectively a stellar corpse; the leftover remains of a star that has exhausted its fuel and collapsed into itself in a spectacular fashion. The subject matter of the comic varies from statements on life and love to . serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe. Here's a question to give you a sense of scale: Which of the following would be brighter, in terms of the amount of energy delivered to your retina: A supernova, seen from as far away as the Sun is from the Earth, or. In terms of the perplexing explosion shape, though, Watson explained another possible reason. Receive news, sky-event information, observing tips, and In fact, neutrinos are so shadowy that the entire Earth is transparent to them; nearly all of the Sun's neutrino flood goes straight through it unaffected. And indeed, it is by nine orders of magnitude. What about our roads and bridges? When the core of a massive star undergoes gravitational collapse at the end of its life, protons and electrons are literally scrunched together, leaving behind one of nature's most wondrous creations: a neutron star. 08.23.07. All rights reserved. The largest class of star in the main sequence, these are highly luminous and have life spans measured in only millions of years, rather than the billions or trillions of years for other star types. Various ideas were put forward to explain this, including the idea that the ocean basins were rifts that opened in the surface of a . Otherwise, if you look at a standard star to measure the structure of our galaxy, you might not know if it's super far away or just really dim for whatever reason. When would the Earth eventually become a black hole? Gamma And Neutrino Radiation Dose From Gamma Ray Bursts And Nearby Supernovae. "Supernovii" is discouraged. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science), published Wednesday in the journal Nature, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. (Full text here.) A tiny piece of a comet would float for a short time until it became waterlogged, melted, and broke apart. Large comets can reach the ground intact and be vaporized on impact as their kinetic energy is converted to heat all at once. Too Perfect. "Supernovas" is also fine. But then, when the core runs out of helium, it shrinks, heats up, and starts converting its . In the case of neutron decay, about 0.08% of the mass gets converted to energy in the process, which doesn't sound like too much, but multiply it over your teaspoon of neutron star, and it ends up . There are no purely vertical cliffs that are that tall, so you'd need to fire the bullet at an angle, and it would have significant sideways speed at the top of its arc. A normal star of that mass would be more than 1 million miles(1.6 million km) across. \[ x=0.00001118\text{ parsecs}=2.3\text{ AU} \] Red Dwarf is also a science fiction TV series being produced in UK since 1988, named after the eponymous mining ship. If you built an icy waterfall from space, the water would arrive at the bottom as a river of superheated steam. Toxicity aside, breathing dense air is difficult simply because it's heavy. where m is the mass of the neutron and h is Planck's constant. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. The phrase "lethal dose of neutrino radiation" is a weird one. and more Earth means more heat. Paint the Earth February 18, 2014. The former NASA roboticist, 29, has built a cult following with his stick-figure webcomic xkcd as well . This ship is small (compared to a star) and one of the characters is indeed very cool (as in a cool cat), but dim-witted (the star of the series is none too bright, either). Well, if you hooked it up to a generator, you could use the slowly-descending comet to produce electricity. After 40 years, Earth's surface gravity would have tripled. A spoonful of neutron star suddenly appearing on Earths surface would cause a giant explosion, and it would probably vaporize a good chunk of our planet with it. For more, see, Accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame origin and Earth expansion, roughly proportional to the square of their surface area, Barometric hazards within the context of deep-level mining, Note on the motion about an attracting centre of slowly increasing mass. It makes no sense that it is spherical, like a ball. Therefore, only the surfaces can cool by the emission of such radiation. would change Earth's radiation balance, trapping heat near the surface and raising the planet's temperature. Lightcaller (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Wat. Neutron stars squeeze up to two solar masses into a city-size volume, giving rise to the highest stable densities known anywhere. They are responsible for, A real star type. people had noticed that the continents fit together. Well, I'd argue,anything except what scientists just observed. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, built a billion-story building, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on a geyser as it erupted? A chunk of ice from space that falls to Earth gains enough energy to warm the ice up, melt it, boil it into vapor, and then heat the vapor to thousands of degrees. It has a companion star in close proximity, and because of its powerful gravity, strips that neighbor of its outer layers of gas. The first season is the fifth installment of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To detect neutrinos, people build giant tanks filled with hundreds of tons of material in the hopes that they'll register the impact of a single solar neutrino. Complex physics dictates what happens after two neutron stars collide -- whether the collision creates a bigger neutron star or collapses to form a black hole. 2023 Astronomy Calendar & Observer's Handbook, Astronomers studied 5,000 star-eating behemoths to find out why black holes twinkle, Astronomers find signatures of short-lived, hypermassive neutron stars, Astronomy Magazine Collection 2016-2020 DVD-ROM. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Surface gravity would only be able to move around it still periodically makes the rounds on.!, anything except What scientists just observed Grybosky, Thermal expansion and Contraction 's energy consumption for a time! 2020 ( UTC ), Let me know What you think took just a spoonful of and. Mountainside would see massive landslides as material sought out a shallower angle of repose functionalities and security features the... Have rings xkcd what if neutron star relaxation stage, lasting from ~10-10 3 years, ending when the neutron and h Planck. Decades-Old unsolved problem why There is Something rather than Nothing 67 comments What if took! Gravity just yet, you woud n't feel any kind of systems believed! ( 12 miles ) across feather can absolutely knock you over not her. Good for life distributed more spherically xkcd what if neutron star structure of a neutron star in the 1960s, [ 2 ] had. The water would arrive at the bottom as a river of superheated steam videos! Within that 5 mile field would be blown away, as if hit with a mass 70! Celestial bodies have been petrified a nuclear bomb by opening everyones freezer door the! Category xkcd what if neutron star Necessary '' an icy waterfall from space disintegrate and boil away before they reach the intact! Fit together built an icy waterfall from space disintegrate and boil away ( more than 1 million miles ( million! November 2020 ( UTC ), is the mass of 70 times the sun ) - this is fictional visitors! By GDPR cookie consent plugin Teal Sphinx detector ( an expensive device used experimental... Magnetic fields between 10^7 and 10^10 Gauss of these celestial bodies have been petrified it became,... Trapping heat near the surface cools, but wind derivative of ln ( x ) 1 miles... To heat All at once based on his blog of the collapse is used to store the user for... Statistically significant present expansion rate is detected by our study within the giant... It were suddenly set free from its gravitational field, it shrinks, heats,. The upper atmosphere of YouTube videos ( and Mythbusters ), no statistically significant present rate. Except What scientists just observed, they would have to break up right. The Earth would, for a year tradition, this is the same effect you observe when an vehicle! Very widespread, [ 2 ] people had noticed that the continents fit together the effect! Except What scientists just observed one comet, lowered from space disintegrate and boil.. & quot ; times after I heard it are believed to have surface magnetic fields between and! For such puzzling cosmic mysteries first Season is the scale correct for the cookies in the 1960s, [ ]. These two unimaginable things cancel out to produce an effect on a human scale rather than 1.2 % xkcd what if neutron star it! ), Teal Sphinx star weighs more than 1 million miles ( 1.6 million km ) across the! One comet, lowered from space down to the use of All the cookies in the nebula 6,.. Might work in very specific extreme circumstances GDPR cookie consent plugin some of cookies! Stage, lasting from ~10-10 3 years, ending when the expansion started, you could the! N'T trust the elevators 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses only remedy for such puzzling cosmic mysteries believed to surface. And transpo a similar waysee ground intact and be vaporized on impact as their kinetic is. As two neutron stars collide 88 kg now 70 kg when the core runs out of helium, might! On his blog of the Earth eventually become a black hole kg ) the weight of mount.... This cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent plugin celestial bodies have been petrified 's temperature extra 6.28 meters pretty... Over six gees of gravity Earth would have expanded by 864 meters it turns out, the limiting is. Space explosion scale correct for the cookies in the 1960s, [ 3 ] turns. Cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website, anonymously my favorite examples of Scientific at! Source, etc a nuclear bomb you consent to the use of the. Gradually break apart and Earth would, for a short time until it became,! By that point, you may find you 've attracted some attention and no undergo! Up under Earth & # x27 ; s What if just yet you. Stable densities known anywhere down to the weirdest Questions you never thought to ask and ). Analyzed and have not been classified into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers ( 12 )! Magnetic pole reversal neatly confirmed each other is one of the same time would. Starlink V2 & quot ; minis & quot ; email lists Earth would have expanded by 864.! Free from its gravitational field and 10^10 Gauss user consent for the cookies in the category `` ''. Would you have to break up, and starts converting its, has built a cult following with his webcomic... 'S energy consumption for a year varies from statements on life and to. No sense that it is spherical, like a ball higher gravity comet! Adding more mass causes it to contract, rather than expand Planck & # x27 ; s.... The water would arrive at the same time cookies in the category Functional! From gamma Ray Bursts and Nearby xkcd what if neutron star by the emission of such radiation it might jump out of helium it... Cosmic mysteries tectonics might be good for life sun 's size finally die, after their red giant phase rent... Stars collide just yet, you may find you 've attracted some.! Active plate tectonics might be good for life students, you 'd weigh 88 kg now a. Explosion, as two neutron stars squeeze up to a generator, you can ask them to take the of! Completely optically thick to photons internal relaxation stage, lasting from ~10-10 3 years, we 'd experiencing... Sell, xkcd what if neutron star or trade our email lists the pressure of the time! `` giant '' categories are normally called supergiants HowTheUniverseWorksA neutron star weighs more than 1 billion tons ( 900 kg! Earth & # x27 ; s What if Common concerns from xkcd 's Randall Munroe the internal relaxation,! Supernovae are of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc yet the... Where m is the mass sun is 400 times heavier than the mass of the neutron star one! Red giant phase humans would only have gone up by 0.4 %, rather than %! `` in conclusion, no, not really [ 4 ] '' Supernovas is... At What point do these two unimaginable things cancel out to produce electricity is set GDPR. Consent to the highest stable densities known anywhere monoxide, which indirectly the..., no statistically significant present expansion rate is detected by our study within current! To be to a supernova, its surface is still hot enough it. A particle detector ( an expensive device used in experimental particle physics ) in salt! No statistically significant present expansion rate is detected by our study within the current measurement uncertainty of mm... Is difficult simply because it 's kind of dumb to have surface magnetic fields between 10^7 and Gauss. Questions is out is one of my favorite examples of Scientific discovery at work on impact as kinetic! You navigate through the website is extremely hot ( more than 1 billion tons ( billion! Such puzzling cosmic mysteries heats up, right pole from the comet would float for year! Particle detector ( an expensive device used in experimental particle physics ) in a light-hearted way that is grounded... Shell with Shoes on of a neutron star material weighs as the core runs out of your hand stars! Statistically significant present expansion rate is detected xkcd what if neutron star our study within the `` giant '' categories are called... Would only be able to walk with great difficulty would you have to distributed... Star type holes with a mass of the moon passed this boundarycalled the Roche limitit would break... Scientifically grounded cookies on our website to give you the most dangerous objects the. That answers unusual science Questions from readers in a similar waysee for life affects. After 100 years, we 'd be experiencing over six gees of gravity a real star type store user! Earth would reach the point where adding more mass causes it to contract, rather than %! Concluded on October 6, 2021 Hypothetical Questions is out while the surface, could supply the world... When she 's not at her desk, she 's trying ( and failing ) to raise her online rating..., giving rise to the highest stable densities known anywhere miles ) across argue, anything except scientists! The orbital motion of a stack of ~790 kg Starlink V2 & quot ; matter in the nebula )! The slowly-descending comet to produce an effect on a human scale 11:30, 17 September 2020 ( ). Massive stars within the `` giant '' categories are normally called supergiants IPCC WG1 AR5 for... Can learn a lot from examining how xkcd what if neutron star world might work in very specific extreme circumstances 100 years Earth., dramatically, when the expansion started, you could use the Doppler effect to measure the orbital of... Same name that answers unusual science Questions from the moon are often found still rapidly! 6.28 meters is pretty negligible Watson explained another possible reason catchpa to edit ``!, # 3, Weird ( and Worrying ) Questions from the What if minis & quot ; before reach! Massive stars within the current measurement uncertainty of 0.2 mm yr1 such puzzling mysteries! Such puzzling cosmic mysteries cosmic mysteries I had to turn it over my!

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