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...
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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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".
Registered: Mar 1999
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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I sincerly hope they don't decide to call the material "Quarkium".
Scientists... an unimaginative bunch.
Registered: Nov 1999
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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.
Registered: Mar 1999
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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!"
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.
-------------------- "Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing. To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
The Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Registered: Mar 2000
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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.
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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