Weird 'Nuclear Pasta' Could Be The Strongest Material in The Universe
A really weird form of matter found in ultradense objects such as neutron stars is looking like a good candidate for the strongest material in the Universe. According to new calculations, it clocks in at a massive 10 billion times stronger than steel.
"This is a crazy-big figure," physicist Charles Horowitz of Indiana University Bloomington told Science News, "but the material is also very, very dense, so that helps make it stronger."
[...] This incredibly high density does something strange to the nuclei of the atoms in the star. As you move closer and closer in towards the centre, the density increases, squishing and squeezing together the nuclei until they deform and fuse together.
The resulting nuclear structures are thought to resemble pasta - hence the name - forming just inside the star's crust. Some structures are flattened into sheets like lasagna, some are bucatini tubes, some are spaghetti-like strands and others are gnocchi-esque clumps. Their density is immense, over 100 trillion times that of water.
In astrophysics and nuclear physics, nuclear pasta is a type of degenerate matter found within the crusts of neutron stars. Between the surface of a neutron star and the quark–gluon plasma at the core, at matter densities of 1014 g/cm3, nuclear attraction and Coulomb repulsion forces are of similar magnitude. The competition between the forces allows for the formation of a variety of complex structures assembled from neutrons and protons. Astrophysicists call these types of structures nuclear pasta because the geometry of the structures resembles various types of pasta.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:35AM
guys @ asgard have been making weapons with this thing for ages
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:57AM (1 child)
May his noodly appendage . . . Look out! that thing is wicked dense and super strong! But what do you expect from a being that created you, me, the mountains, and trees. https://www.venganza.org/images/cafepress/450-original-drawing.jpg [venganza.org]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:18PM
I expect it to have had a life as a single-celled organism right here on earth, and not to have been wicked dense or super-strong.
Can't be certain. But that's definitely the way to bet, because, you know, evidence.
(Score: 3, Funny) by WizardFusion on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:00AM (6 children)
That stuff, if it can be used and shaped, could be used as the building material for a dyson sphere
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:25AM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 19 2018, @08:15AM (1 child)
You most likely can't actually make a cable of it, the way you can't make a cable out of water at zero-g (i.e. the "surface tension" of that material is much higher than anything the solar system can provide as gravity - you'll just have a round blob of unyielding exotic matter for which you don't have enough force to deform).
And if you could make a cable out of it, the mass of that "cable" may cause the Earth rotate around it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday September 20 2018, @04:42AM
I was curious to how much it would in theory weigh, so I did the math based on the following:
The nuclear pasta is found in the outer 100 meters of the crust of a typical neutron star with a radius of 12km. That makes a volume of about 180,000,000,000 cubic meters (7.24e12 - 7.06e12). It was shown to have an approx 0.01 solar mass which converts to roughly 1.9891e28 kg.
That leaves approx 110,505,555,555,556,000 kgs per cubic meter of the stuff.
Yeah. that's pretty damned heavy.
Happy if anyone corrects any mistakes in this rushed calc btw
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:52AM (1 child)
I love Italian more than anybody, I'm dealing with Italian guys every day. They're beautiful people. But the pasta, first of all you have to import it. And then look, it's not so strong. They say, "10 billion times stronger than steel." Sounds like a lot, right? I'll tell you, it's not a lot. Because when you look at how heavy it is, they say "over 100 trillion times" heavier than water. But 10 billion -- one of my favorite numbers -- goes into 100 trillion so many times, it goes 10,000 times. But steel is only 8 times heavier than water. Something like 8. You can go much taller with steel because the weight is so much less. Give me good old American steel! Trust me, we're using American steel to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law. I call it Buy America. My Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, big steel guy. He bought up so many of our steel mills that were going bankrupt, he turned them around. I did a tariff. And our steel industry is very happy right now!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @02:30PM
It's still not as dense as you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @05:57PM
What is that? Some sort of nucular meatball?
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:00AM (4 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:08AM (1 child)
Rocket says, "You just got to suck the fun out of everything, don't ya?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:20PM
500 billion megatons of energy IS fun.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:19AM (1 child)
After 400 year research and countless billions of credits invested, the first stable nukepasta is delivered. The scientist AI gets linked to the propaganda AI for the press conference.
- this nukepasta is 10 billion times stronger than steel
- it will be good for weapons then?
- not really, it is 10 billion times heavier than steel so it is a chore to move around
- it will be good for defense and construction then?
- not really, a guy with a slingshot hitting it would start a chain reaction and blow the solar system up
- well guys are long extinct but I get the idea, so what it is good for?
- dunno, that question was not in the research spec
- ok thank you then
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:24AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @07:53AM (5 children)
so what happened is that scientists simulated a very exotic form of matter.
this is good because they can make predictions about various stuff, and maybe one day we'll be able to check those predictions.
in turn, if it turns out the predictions are correct, it means we understand the equations correctly (we know what to keep and what to throw out when we do the simulations).
in turn, this has currently unpredictable consequences throughout mathematics and physics, because approximation schemes are confirmed etc --- most likely nothing groundbreaking, but possibly leading to more efficient simulations in other problems as well.
in any case, we now understand the universe a little better.
but the authors of the work need citations in order to get future funding/jobs.
therefore they struggle to find something revealed by their work that is at the same time new and extreme in some sense (because, unfortunately, there's nothing paradigm-shifting or with significant practical applications), such that their work will stand out in some way (therefore earning the right to be published in a highranking journal, and being much more visible, therefore getting more citations).
as a physicist myself, I read the title and my first instinct was to start berating the idiotic authors. it's obvious that this material is very "strong". but this material will never interact with anything but itself, or a quark-gluon plasma. it's not like anyone will ever be able to use it for anything. the statement is meaningless.
I may as well say that bottles made from solid helium will never contaminate their contents with dangerous chemicals, unlike plastic bottles.
I hate the "get cited or perish" state of affairs that we're in.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 19 2018, @08:40AM (4 children)
First, is (a state of) matter not a material. In the sense you can't take a small piece of it and do stuff with it - there's nothing to keep that small piece stable in that state.
Second... yeah, nah... it will interact with you pretty strong if you, a being kept together by chemical forces, get close enough to that monster kept together by strong nuclear forces and a gravity only a smidge lower than the one of a blackhole. Of course, during that atto-second interaction, the nuclei of all atoms that make you up will be happy to "dissolve and season" that pasta.
Getting close enough for you to touch it will kill you in the process many times over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:44AM (3 children)
Sounds like we've already found an application: nuclear pasta bomb.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:17PM (2 children)
None can do.
At the best, throw all you garbage into a neutron star, it won't come back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @10:18PM
Until you throw enough in that it becomes a black hole and then it comes back out as Hawking radiation. (i think that's how it works - but there's a reason it's not called AC-radiation.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:40AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @11:50AM
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whats-stronger-than-steel-spider-silk/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
That's great, comparing it to steel that way. Maybe the FIU can rebuild their pedestrian bridge with it, so it won't collapse onto the highway below.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:44PM
The highway, and the passing vehicles, would collapse UP into it.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)
That's just under the star's crust. I wonder what happens deeper?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @01:37AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @12:59AM
a generous serving of copy/pasta