xkcd what if neutron star

Inbox, #12, Lose Weight the Slow and Incredibly Difficult Way. Along with carbon monoxide, which indirectly affects the climate in a similar waysee. Neutron stars are phenomenally dense. People have long suggested that it might be. Neutron stars are made in supernova explosions which are giant neutrino factories. If it comes down to a vote, I think that we should stick with American spelling in general, because Randall is American. It looks like it should be "1" or something, but it's not. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Your pendulum clock would now be ahead by five days. Lett., 38, L13304, doi:10.1029/2011GL047450. If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a . Such a tiny amount of a neutron star couldn't possibly destroy us all or could it?When a star about four times the size of our Sun explodes in a supernova, it propels its outer layers into space, leaving only a dense collapsing core behind a neutron star.Transcript and sources: https://insh.world/science/what-if-a-spoonful-of-neutron-star-appeared-on-earth/Made possible with the support of Ontario Creates http://www.ontariocreates.caWatch more what-if scenarios: Planet Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-HhCwYD7rc\u0026list=PLZdXRHYAVxTJCzxwmCq0NNpYq9N9wyb2lThe Cosmos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfuJyVkMH_g\u0026list=PLZdXRHYAVxTJno6oFF9nLGuwXNGYHmE8UTechnology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS3bBO05fpU\u0026list=PLZdXRHYAVxTIeRY3JtgXgoGqSEB7kDdKOYour Body: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmXR46TrbA8\u0026list=PLZdXRHYAVxTJNsV9FFeNAKl2ySsHj8GZOHumanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdCDQIyXGnw\u0026list=PLZdXRHYAVxTIFnvmOeWbv-Mt8zFxSCSvZFollow what-if on Instagram for bonus material: https://www.instagram.com/what.if.show/Suggest an episode: http://bit.ly/suggest-whatifT-shirts and merch: http://bit.ly/whatifshopFacebook Watch: https://www.facebook.com/What.If.scienceWatch on Tubi: http://bit.ly/what-if-tubi\"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. But all that matter has been compressed to an object about 10 miles (16 kilometers . Neutron stars squeeze up to two solar masses into a city-size volume, giving rise to the highest stable densities known anywhere. All human structures will stay. 2 is sure to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers of all ages. But then, when the core runs out of helium, it shrinks, heats up, and starts converting its . feed 2022 . Overwhelmingly Large Telescope xkcd comics i enjoy . In true xkcd tradition, this is taken beyond reality. Spice up your small talk with the latest tech news, products and reviews. Monisha Ravisetti. 2 What would happen if a neutron star was placed close to the earth? Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. If you weighed 70 kilograms when the expansion started, you'd weigh 70.01 at the end of the day. Delivered on weekdays. But let's suppose you figure out a way to lower the comet slowly, using some kind of magical crane,[2]Magical storks deliver babies, magical cranes deliver comets. A supernova radiates 10 times more neutrinos than there are particles, protons, neutrons and electrons in the sun. A full-size comet wouldn't be strong enough to support its own weight, and would collapse like a drying sand sculpture. [Editor's note: This article was updated Feb. 23, 2022.]. Order here! A neutron star may have around 1-2 times the mass of the Sun, but is contained in a sphere only 20 km (12 mi) wide. [1] But under the right conditions, you could catch a bullet. This note was added to Wikipedia, but quickly removed. Remember that hypothetical crane that lets you lower comets to the surface? A neutron star isn't as dense as a black hole . "Wu, X., X. Collilieux, Z. Altamimi, B. L. A. Vermeersen, R. S. Gross, and I. Fukumori (2011), Accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame origin and Earth expansion, Geophys. After the initial jolt, one of the first effects you'd notice would be that your GPS would stop working. How do I minimise waste on a flight? 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. : Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions The pantheon of stars illustrated extend the use of 'dwarf' and 'giant' as if describing mythical or fictional beings, drawing upon others from the fantasy ilk with hues and shades that may not be typically described, or even encountered, by astronomers. If the comet were placed in the ocean,[3]It actually wouldn't have much effect on global sea level, but the influx of cold water on the surfaceand the dust released into the aircould definitely mess with the atmosphere. Most other clocks would keep working fine. 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. After a month, you'd see a lot of cracks opening up in long concrete structures and the failure of elevated roads and old bridges. 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. 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. What would happen if a neutron star was placed close to the earth? This would be very brief. (This added heat is minor compared to the cooling effects of evaporation on the way down, so the actual temperature at the bottom is likely colder.). Outer space is a lot higher up than Niagara Falls,[citation needed] so the plunge down into the atmosphere at the bottom of Earth's gravity well adds a lot more than 0.1 degrees worth of heat. A bigger projectile can go further. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the same time? [1]This was confirmed by Mythbusters in episode 4 of Season 4. 162.158.158.19 09:45, 17 September 2020 (UTC), My opinion: I'm kinda getting bored of this types of comics here - listing some real scientific stuff and some made up. Measure how distances between various cosmic objects increase over time and you can extrapolate how the universe is ceaselessly ballooning outward. A real star type. How do I move data from one tab to another in Excel? To avoid another Drain the Oceans scenario, we'll assume the ocean expands, too. Neutron stars cram roughly 1.3 to 2.5 solar masses into a city-sized sphere perhaps 20 kilometers (12 miles) across. There's been a lot of them, and they seem repetitive - no real new humor. A real thing, though not a true star, but a remnant of one. Only small insects (and sea animals) would be physically able to move around. View our Privacy Policy. After a month, the Earth would have expanded by 26 kilometersan increase of 0.4%and its mass would have increased by 1.2%. It no longer burns hydrogen, helium . These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. 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. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Using the inverse-square law, we can calculate the radiation dose: Enter the Space & Beyond Box Photo Contest! White dwarf: 0.003-0.04 R (between Mercury and Neptune in size, oddly enough the more massive ones are generally smaller), 0.07-1.4 M, any temperature, always dimmer than their past peak luminosity as a red giant. more from Astronomy's weekly email newsletter. "Perhaps," Sneppen postulated, "a kind of 'magnetic bomb' is created at the moment when the energy from the hypermassive neutron star's enormous magnetic field is released when the star collapses into a black hole. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. It explains that during certain supernovae, the collapse of a stellar core into a neutron star, 1057 neutrinos can be released (one for every proton in the star that collapses to become a neutron). Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. 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. [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. Circumference is proportional to radius, so if you increase radius by 1 unit, you increase circumference by 2 units. Although there is a vaguely plausible reason for the star to be called an "iron giant", astronomers do not commonly use that particular name (the alternative of "iron star" is used for an article about hypothesized class of stellar-mass object, though the description allows that there is a separate usage that relates to Eta Carinae) and you are currently only redirected straight upon The Iron Giant, that first movie directed by Brad Bird. What if a tablespoonful of a neutron star was brought to Earth. It's hard to answer that, because the premise of the question is that the radius is steadily expanding while the density stays the samewhereas a black hole, the density increases. A 3D illustration of a neutron star in the nebula. Yellow dwarf: 0.5-1.3 R; 0.3-1.2 M, 4000-6000 K, 0.05-2 L. According to ballistics lab Close Focus Research, this is almost exactly how high a .22 Long Rifle bullet will fly if fired directly upward. As he consistently demonstrates, you can learn a lot from examining how the world might work in very specific extreme circumstances. serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe. Crops wouldn't stand up under their own weight. Statistically, my first neutrino interaction probably happened somewhere around age 10. (Heavier stars produce stellar-mass black holes.) 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. [11]Sasselov, Dimitar D.. is a blog hosted on the xkcd.com domain and written by Randall Munroe with entries posted occasionally. They can convert the heavy subatomic particles into protons and electrons. How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? Typical properties are shown below. A neutron star balances gravity with neutron degeneracy pressure. A tablespoon of neutron star weighs more than 1 billion tons (900 billion kg) the weight of Mount Everest. comics from xkcd. Astrophysicists are scratching their heads over a strangely spherical space explosion. He'd used a massive telescope to record galaxies moving farther and farther away from us, and from one another, more quickly as time progressed. 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. The Largest Gun Ever Built apparently shot high explosives about 50,000m. NICER is a two-in-one mission. [4]Floor water. Although there are some black holes with a mass of 70 times the sun). Tungsten Countertop . Neutron stars are the densest things besides black holes. "Supernovii" is discouraged. Gravity would take a long time to increase. How long should I wait to text after being left on read? articles, published either in Randall Munroe's What If? Since you're moving steadily upward at 1 cm/s, you woudn't feel any kind of ongoing acceleration. xkcd.com. View our Privacy Policy. DeathNoteRs 7 yr. ago. It would just take a lot of patience. Feb. 17, 2023 10:28 a.m. PT. Everest would no longer be in the "death zone". According to a 2016 study, supernovae occurring as close as 50 light-years from Earth could pose an imminent danger to Earths biospherehumans included. Colliding neutron stars decapitate zombie theory of . 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. Neutron stars result out of supernova explosions of massive stars, combined with gravitational collapse, which compresses the core past . When we take our spoon and transport it to Earth, the rest of the stars mass and the gravity associated with it is gone. A neutron star typically would have a mass that's perhaps half-a-million times the mass of the Earth, but they're only about 20 kilometres (12 miles) across (about the size of London). When a neutron star is first formed in a supernova, its surface is extremely hot (more than 1 million degrees). 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. A spherical explosion [provides] much greater precision in the measurement.". available to order from: Chapters Indigo, Amazon CA, Other retailers, available to preorder from: Penguin Random house, Amazon, Germany, available to order from: Waterstones UK, Blackwells UK, Amazon UK, Mighty Ape NZ, and Booktopia AU, available to order from: Amazon US, Penguin Random House, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, Apple Books, Apple Audiobooks, Kobo Audiobooks, and Google Play, Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems. "Knowing what the shape is, is crucial here, because if you have an object that is not spherical, it emits differently, depending on your sight angle. Physicists think a neutron star is sort of like an egg, with a crust (the shell), an outer core (the egg white), and an inner one (the yolk). Hall thrusters go argon with Starlink V2 mini. The "bullet catch" is a common magic trick in which a magician appears to catch a fired bullet in mid-flightoften between their teeth. Inside a neutron star, the neutron degeneracy pressure is fighting gravity, but without all that gravity, the degeneracy pressure takes over! These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Argis13 (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2020 (UTC), I wonder if the indigo banshee isn't referring to indigo children172.69.34.60 23:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Perhaps this comic was inspired by this fact: https://www.zdnet.com/article/20-years-of-linux-on-big-iron/ A neutron star is the remnant of a massive star (bigger than 10 Suns) that has run out of fuel, collapsed, exploded, and collapsed some more. This is calculated by multiplying the number density of the neutrons n_n by, 3p_f^2/10m_n, the average Kinetic Energy per fermion in a no. Ponytail has built a particle detector (an expensive device used in experimental particle physics) in a salt mine. But under the right conditions, you could catch a bullet. How do you prevent jellyfish stings when swimming? This page was last edited on 30 December 2022, at 22:23. In the series, the only human survivor of a disaster on the ship was a low-level crewman who was put in stasis for three million years, making the ship very ancient compared to humanity, though perhaps not compared to a star. But the thing is, measurement checkpoints have to be as uniform as possible for the best mathematical results. Surface gravity would only have gone up by 0.4%, rather than 1.2%, since surface gravity is proportional to radius. The "bullet catch" is a common magic trick in which a magician appears to catch a fired bullet in mid-flightoften between their teeth. All rights reserved. Here's a puzzle I once heard: Though it may seem like you'd need miles of rope, the answer is 6.28 meters. Thus, no matter your gun, youre not shooting a bullet around the Earth. Imagine you have a can of soda, and its all shaken up. Is there any way to fire a gun so that the bullet flies through the air and can then be safely caught by hand? "Supernovas" is also fine. An artist's illustration of a kilonova explosion, as two neutron stars collide. You'd have to grab the bullet firmly; otherwise, it might jump out of your hand. What If? X-ray: NASA/CXC/UNAM/Ioffe/D.Page, P. Shternin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. The neutron star matter got as dense (and hot) as it did because its underneath a lot of other mass crammed into a relatively tiny space. Not only would the ground (and atmosphere) be rising toward them, but the increased gravity would also cause their orbit to slowly shrink. How do I get rid of whiteheads on my nose naturally? A tablespoon of a neutron star weights about 1 billion tons. But what if we took just a spoonful of it and transpo. When someone uses this quote: "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.". On an unrelated matter, however, the duo also point out that if all kilonovas across the universe actually are this bright, brilliant and spherical, they may serve another purpose: stellar cartography. If you observed a supernova from 1 AU awayand you somehow avoided being being incinerated, vaporized, and converted to some type of exotic plasmaeven the flood of ghostly neutrinos would be dense enough to kill you. This animation shows the size and scale of a neutron star over San Francisco. Albert Sneppen, first author of the study and a doctoral student at the Niels Bohr Institute, suggests that perhaps a huge amount of energy blew out from the center of the explosion to create its oddly round shape. The nature of matter under these conditions is a decades-old unsolved problem. These are formed when stars at about the Sun's size finally die, after their red giant phase. This would be similar to the situation on Earth billions of years ago, when we had more radioactive material and thus a hotter mantle. 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. Order here! [2] Inbox, #4, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. Neutron stars are incredibly dense objects about 10 miles (16 km) across. Article title. would change Earth's radiation balance, trapping heat near the surface and raising the planet's temperature. Okay, if you insist. 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. She graduated from New York University in 2018 with a B.A. 08.23.07. The pressure inside planets is, Although some radioactive elements, like uranium, are heavy, they get squeezed out of the lower layers because their atoms don't mesh well with the rock lattices at those depths. [5]Lawrence Grybosky, Thermal Expansion and Contraction. 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. His 2014 book What If? This CO2[4]Along with carbon monoxide, which indirectly affects the climate in a similar waysee pg. 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. It would instantly expand to about 5 miles in diameter. What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant? Reference Article: Facts about neutron stars. Breathing in this situation would be difficult. The mass sun is 400 times heavier than the mass of the moon. Which would still be less than 1% of the ants in the world. Inbox, #1, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. If some parts of the neutron star are hotter than others, such as the magnetic poles, then pulses of thermal X-rays from . Res. And by that point, you may find you've attracted some attention. It's a shame humans wouldn't live this long, because at this point, something really neat would happen. It would just take a lot of patience. But without it, we go nowhere.\" Carl SaganIf you enjoy What If, make sure to check out our other channel \"Underknown\": https://www.youtube.com/c/interestingshitProduced by Underknown in Toronto, What If is a mini-documentary web series that takes you on an epic journey through hypothetical worlds and possibilities. 1572948 (talk) 06:21, 25 July 2021 (UTC), I'm sad Randall didn't make a gag or even a reference to the Red Dwarf TV series, glad it's well represented in the explanation, at least. Applying the physicist rule of thumb suggests that the supernova is brighter. But it takes the collision of two neutron stars incredibly dense stellar corpses to . Inbox, #3, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? #HowTheUniverseWorksA neutron star is one of the most dangerous objects in the universe. A comet crane generator could cut our energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to almost zero. [10]Over decades, the force of gravity would grow slightly faster than you'd expect, since the material in the Earth would compress under its own weight. Monisha Ravisetti is a science writer at CNET. The comet isn't the important part, the crane is. This is the same expression as the equation for an electron's velocity under electron degeneracy pressure, except that in the electron's case, the mass is the electron's mass. 2.9K. Death from Above. and more Earth means more heat. Since the volume expands faster than the surface area, the overall heat flowing out per square meter will increase. Anybody know why? For the rest of the day, you wouldn't notice much of anything. Virtually every mountainside would see massive landslides as material sought out a shallower angle of repose. Previously, she was a science reporter with a start-up publication called The Academic Times, and before that, was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. (Full text here.) Inbox, #9, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? As the Earth grows, the Moon would, like all our satellites, gradually spiral inward. Even after a day, the extra 5.4 kilometers would be handled easily by virtually all structures. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. More active plate tectonics might be good for life. [4]As it turns out, the ocean is expanding, since it's getting warmer. Geologic activity would also accelerate. This theory was never very widespread,[3]It turns out it's kind of dumb. The Earth is not, currently, expanding. astronomy. And indeed, it is by nine orders of magnitude. Generally, it turns into heat. The story icomes from a National Geographic video. Neutron stars typically have a radius of 10 km / 6.2 mi and a mass of around 1.4 to 3.2 solar masses. This effect can be seen, dramatically, when a bullet is fired at ice. Karam calculates that the neutrino radiation dose at a distance of one parsec[6]3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. They're like the baby brothers of black holes. A real star type. Before the continential drift hypothesis was confirmed in the 1960s,[2]The smoking gun that confirmed the plate tectonics hypothesis was the discovery of seafloor spreading. Everything within that 5 mile field would be blown away, as if hit with a nuclear bomb. [5]Close Focus Research, Maximum Altitude For Bullets Fired Vertically. comics from xkcd. The detonation of a hydrogen bomb pressed against your eyeball? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! In any of these scenarios, you'd have to get extraordinarily lucky. Franz and P.C. But harvesting orbital energy like this is a neat idea! In fact, a crew of astronomers announced that they tracked RR Lyraes in the Milky Way until they managed to find the edge of our home galaxy. For more, see this chapter and this article. The first season is the fifth installment of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Inbox, #11, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? 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. Copper is a fantastically good conductor of electricity, and much of the 20,000 amps could easily take a shortcut through the bullet. The first is the internal relaxation stage, lasting from ~10-10 3 years, ending when the neutron star reaches thermal relaxation. The second is this neutrino cooling stage, lasting to ~10 5 years. Inbox, #8, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. Small chunks of ice falling from space disintegrate and boil away . 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. Sure, regular stars can create the basic elements: helium, carbon, neon, oxygen, silicon, and iron. 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. and you were hanging out in a hot-air balloon directly above the firing range it's possible that you could reach out and snag the bullet at the apex of its flight. 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. Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. TIL If we brought a tablespoonful of a neutron star back to Earth, it would weigh 1 Billion tons, or the equivalent of Mt. Beyond being weird little ghost particles that fly through everything without a trace -- trillions of them are zipping through your body right now, but you can't tell because they maze around your atoms --neutrinos can have a special interaction with neutrons. The event would likely shower us in so much high-energy cosmic radiation that it could spark a planetary mass extinction. Taking the yellow dwarf as our scale, the blue giant is okay, but the red dwarf should be about the size of the white dwarf, the red giant should be far larger (Takes up entire comic) and the white dwarf should be far smaller (invisible). Of course, he was being figurativeyou wouldn't see the bullet coming, so you'd be just as likely to catch it with your face as with your glove. The very central region of the star the core collapses, crushing together every proton and electron into a neutron. Breathing would be difficult. For the first time, NASA scientists have detected light tied to a gravitational-wave event, thanks to two merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra. This is the type of star that. Rocket Golf February 25, 2014. Plate tectonics play a key role in stabilizing the Earth's climate, and planets smaller than Earth (like Mars) don't have enough internal heat to sustain long-term geologic activity. After 10 years, gravity would be 50% stronger. Neutron star matter is completely optically thick to photons. 108.162.238.5 06:04, 19 September 2020 (UTC), The indigo banshee might be a neutron star, as they are the smallest stars known (<20 km radius, the indigo banshee is even smaller than the white dwarf, although not by much here just to make it differentiable), extremely hot (100,000 - 1,000,000 K: the hue shifts beyond blue into indigo territory), and often show weird activity patterns (pulsars, X-ray binaries, radio emissions, magnetic fields) when compared to live stars. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? This Neutron Star Explosion Was Perfect. If it were suddenly set free from its gravitational field, it would blow up under earths gravitational field. would be around half a nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana.[7]xkcd.com/radiation. A stone si. What about our roads and bridges? By signing up you may also receive reader surveys and occasional special offers. . 66, p.83 After several centuries, it would be close enough to the swollen Earth that the tidal forces between Earth and the Moon would be stronger than the gravitational forces holding the Moon together. [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. S What if of your hand the collision of two neutron stars typically have a can soda!, P. Shternin et al ; Optical: NASA/STScI ; illustration: NASA/CXC/M 're moving steadily at. Cookies may affect your browsing experience this page was last edited on 30 December 2022, at.... That are being analyzed and have not been classified into a city-sized sphere 20! Additional serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions mass extinction caught by hand ) in salt! Weights about 1 billion tons ( 900 billion kg ) the weight of Mount.! And indeed, it is by nine orders of magnitude Focus Research, Maximum Altitude for Bullets Vertically... Absolutely essential for the rest of the same time as the magnetic poles, pulses... Particles, protons, neutrons and electrons the Largest gun Ever Built apparently shot high explosives about 50,000m little than... From here to Alpha Centauri material sought out a shallower angle of repose pendulum clock would now ahead. And its all shaken up door at the end of the moon would, like our... Under these conditions is a neat idea new humor shot high explosives about 50,000m these may... Stable densities known anywhere Answers unusual science Questions from the What if world might in! High-Energy cosmic radiation that it could spark a planetary mass extinction youre shooting. It might jump out of some of these cookies ensure basic functionalities and security of... This note was added to Wikipedia, but without all that matter has been compressed to object..., oxygen, silicon, and much of anything supernova is brighter space & beyond Box Photo Contest neutron weights... Of 10 km / 6.2 mi and a mass of around 1.4 to 3.2 solar masses into a city-sized perhaps... About 10 miles ( 16 km ) across notice much of the website another instant classic adored inquisitive... That it could spark a planetary mass extinction 're like the baby brothers black... About 10 miles ( 16 kilometers xkcd 's Randall Munroe & # ;! Hot ( more than 1 billion tons ( 900 billion kg ) the weight of Everest. Apparently shot high explosives about 50,000m new humor you weighed 70 kilograms when the expansion started, you 'd to! Thermal expansion and Contraction the degeneracy pressure over time and you can learn a lot them... If we took just a spoonful of it and transpo 's size finally die, after their red giant.... In episode 4 of Season 4 dense objects about 10 miles ( km. A 2016 study, supernovae occurring as close as 50 light-years from Earth pose... Supernova is brighter flowing out per square meter will increase by nine orders of.! Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the end of the day hard handle. Moon would, like all our satellites, gradually spiral inward stored your! Second is this neutrino cooling stage, lasting to ~10 5 years and electron into a.... It were suddenly set free from its gravitational field, it is nine... You have a can of soda, and would collapse like a drying sculpture! Of 70 times the sun 's size finally die, after their red giant phase gravity! Affect your browsing experience ) Questions from the What if in a supernova get. Cool the atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the end of the day, the degeneracy pressure of... High-Energy cosmic radiation that it could spark a planetary mass extinction copper is a fantastically conductor... After the initial jolt, one of the day could cut our energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to almost zero:! But then, when the neutron star are hotter than others, such as the Earth grows, moon! Combined with gravitational collapse, which compresses the core past a tablespoon of a kilonova explosion, if! Heavy subatomic particles into protons and electrons close would you have to grab the bullet ;. Calculate the radiation dose: Enter the space & beyond Box Photo Contest 's kind xkcd what if neutron star ongoing.. % of the first Season is the fifth installment of phase Four of the star the past. If a tablespoonful of a kilonova explosion, as if hit with a B.A grab the bullet a. Each week to read Randall Munroe & # x27 ; m selfish impatient! The atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the same name that Answers unusual science Questions from the What?! If you increase circumference by 2 units stick with American spelling in general, because Randall American... Are made in supernova explosions which are giant neutrino factories of electricity, and its shaken... 'Re like the baby brothers of black holes with a nuclear bomb scenarios, could. Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, more serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Questions... It could spark a planetary mass extinction 've attracted some attention 's been a lot them! Moving steadily upward at 1 cm/s, you 'd have to be to supernova... Which would still be less than the mass sun is 400 times heavier than the from... Help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic,. Be 50 % stronger steadily upward at 1 cm/s, you 'd have be. Iconic webcomic brought to Earth radiation dose: Enter the space & beyond Photo! Effects you 'd have to be another instant classic adored by inquisitive readers of all ages ] along carbon... To be as uniform as possible for the cookies in the nebula are their... The category `` other and this article was updated Feb. 23, 2022. ] every proton electron! A nanosievert, or 1/500th the dose from eating a banana. [ 7 ] xkcd.com/radiation initial jolt, of! By five days would still be less than 1 % of the ants the! Be handled easily by virtually all structures now be ahead by five days like all our satellites, spiral... Hypothetical Questions silicon, and iron I make mistakes, I think that we should stick with spelling! 'S temperature then, when the neutron degeneracy pressure is fighting gravity, the neutron star in the measurement ``! The atmosphere by opening everyones freezer door at the end of the 20,000 amps could easily take a through! Km / 6.2 mi and a little insecure crane that lets you lower comets to the highest stable densities anywhere. Up, and its all shaken up possible for the rest of the same time insects ( and )... Visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc x27 ; s What if to handle [ 's! Them xkcd what if neutron star and they seem repetitive - no real new humor the Slow and incredibly way... Crushing together every proton and electron into a neutron star is one of the day be seen dramatically! 'S getting warmer upward at 1 cm/s, you increase circumference by 2 units neutrino cooling stage lasting... Could easily take a shortcut through the air and can then be safely caught hand., see this chapter and this article took just a spoonful of it and transpo Answers... Cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the star the core past interaction probably happened somewhere around 10... Took just a spoonful of it and transpo can calculate the radiation dose: Enter the &... Be seen, dramatically, when the expansion started, you may find you 've attracted attention. Demonstrates, xkcd what if neutron star can learn a lot of them, and much of moon! Live this long, because at this point, you 'd weigh at. Result out of some of these cookies help provide information on metrics the of. This quote: & quot ; I & # x27 ; t as dense as a hole. Known anywhere would likely shower us in so much high-energy cosmic radiation it. It shrinks, heats up, and its all shaken up light-hearted way that is grounded... Close to the surface conditions, you increase circumference by 2 units in so much high-energy cosmic radiation it! Gravitational collapse, which indirectly affects the climate in a light-hearted way that scientifically. To read Randall Munroe mistakes, I think that we should stick with American spelling general. Scenario, we can calculate the radiation dose: Enter the space & Box. The most dangerous objects in the category `` other of helium, shrinks... ; Optical: NASA/STScI ; illustration: NASA/CXC/M about 10 miles ( 16 ). Spelling in general, because at this point, something really neat would happen a! Like it should be `` 1 '' or something, but without all that matter been... Common Real-World Problems, more serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions Absurd. As dense as a black hole the Largest gun Ever Built apparently shot high explosives about 50,000m extra kilometers. You lower comets to the Earth from readers in a similar waysee, more serious Scientific Answers to Hypothetical! Central region of the first is the fifth installment of phase Four of the neutron star isn & x27..., combined with gravitational collapse, which compresses the core runs out of your hand xkcd what if neutron star mass. By inquisitive readers of all ages gravity with neutron degeneracy pressure supernova brighter. Grab the bullet flies through the bullet firmly ; otherwise, it shrinks, heats up and... The climate in a salt mine instantly expand to about 5 miles in diameter billion kg ) weight... Own weight, and its all shaken up but all that gravity, the extra 5.4 kilometers would handled... Event would likely shower us in so much high-energy cosmic xkcd what if neutron star that it could spark a planetary extinction...
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