quote:The stars' strange matter is only a few times more dense than the matter of neutron stars, where the atoms that make up ordinary matter are crushed down to the bare nuclei.
...
In this even denser strange matter, protons and neutrons that make up the nuclei were themselves crushed into their component particles, called quarks.
I always get a warm, fuzzy feeling when "Star Trek" predictions come true like this...
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Man, that sounds painful......
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Erm... Neutronium would presumably be made of neutrons. In other words, the stuff neutron stars are made of: something we've known about for years. This new stuff has the neutrons broken up into quarks, so it's even denser than "neutronium".
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
I sincerly hope they don't decide to call the material "Quarkium".
Scientists... an unimaginative bunch.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I love how science stories in newspapers can never, ever, ever cover a subject without slipping in "might destroy the planet!" somewhere.
Anyway, I look forward to buying household products made out of this strange metter. Impossible, you say? Well, perhaps. But I'm a firm believer in mind over metter.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Science is just so boring these days. Way back when, somebody'd discover neutronium, they'd do so by dropping it on their foot, or something. Now they write an article, but in the same way they do porn films - hard-core and soft-core versions.
Hard-core, it's loaded with incomprehensible equations, thrusting and penetrating right into the heart of the secrets of the universe.
Soft-core, they dance around the issue. All the serious stuff is cut out, and in the absence of a proper scientific money-shot, they make a lot of fusas about "could destroy the planet!"
Posted by Jernau Morat Gurgeh (Member # 318) on :
quote:Scientists... an unimaginative bunch.
Not really, actually there's a tendency towards a type of obscure humour in the scientific community, especially in the particle physics area. Only one example comes to mind, the so-called WIMPS, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, but I'm sure there are a few more examples.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
How about the very point of the article, strange quarks?
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
I don't think I ever met a quark that wasn't strange.
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :
Quarkonium!
Someone will be selling it online, by e-mail, before the day is out.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
What do stars like this emit!?!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Uh...what do you mean?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Two distant stars made of 'strange metter' are discovered
Heh, heh....sorry.
As for what they emit.
quote: Astronomers found both stars with an orbiting telescope called Chandra, which observes X rays rather than visible light. The X rays emitted by these stars were what indicated their composition.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
No need for you to apologize, it's their headline.
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