spicy pancakeShould Neutron Stars be Added to the Periodic Table?
SibshopsOkay this is good
ns1After reading I realised that this proposal isn’t a single new element for all neutron stars, but a separate new entry on the table for every individual neutron star in existence, unless there are two that happen to have the exact same number of protons which is unlikely. Sounds good to me
bleistift2protons
we have assumed that Rex is comprised of a uniform nucleon fluid, with protons, neutrons and electrons in an idealised 1:8:1 ratio
This is how the author is estimating it, they are assuming 1/9th of the mass is protons. No idea how good that assumption is though, there is a source which doesn’t look the most convincing
Whoopsie. I used to assume neutron stars are made of neutrons. It turns out Big Astronomy lied to me.
Neutron stars are made of neutrons in the same way that tapwater is made of water molecules: primarily, but not entirely
I thought they were made from your mom’s dingleberries
Neutron stars have so high pressure that MOST but not all protons decay into neutrons plus electrons positrons (plus neutrinos)
Edit: (see quote below)
I’m not exactly well-read on particle physics, but to my understanding neutrons and neutrinos are neutrally charged and electrons are negatively charged. Why does a proton break down into net-negatively charged particles? I assume some weird quark shenanigans.
abc.lbl.gov/wallchart/chapters/03/2.html
I got stuff mixed
In beta minus decay, a neutron decays into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino: n Æ p + e - +. In beta plus decay, a proton decays into a neutron, a positron, and a neutrino: p Æ n + e+ +n. Both reactions occur because in different regions of the Chart of the Nuclides, one or the other will move the product closer to the region of stability. These particular reactions take place because conservation laws are obeyed. Electric charge conservation requires that if an electrically neutral neutron becomes a positively charged proton, an electrically negative particle (in this case, an electron) must also be produced. Similarly, conservation of lepton number requires that if a neutron (lepton number = 0) decays into a proton (lepton number = 0) and an electron (lepton number = 1), a particle with a lepton number of -1 (in this case an antineutrino) must also be produced. The leptons emitted in beta decay did not exist in the nucleus before the decay–they are created at the instant of the decay.
Thanks for the clarification! That all makes sense to me.
Hum… The width of each row increases exponentially with their number.
It’s probably just some ~1m away from the small elements.
gandalf_der_12teThe width of each row increases exponentially with their number.
Doesn’t it only increase quadratically?
Sinc esurface area of a sphere grows quadratically with radius …
The number of solutions to the Schrodinger equation of the atom increases exponentially with the main quantum number.
Our current periodic table is already huge. People break the last lines down into a set of disjoint lines that have about the same width as the main table.
Astronomical levels of snark
magnetosphere(not to scale) is my favorite part
Figure 3’s label.
“Chlorine atoms are shown in red.” got me.
I particularly enjoyed
10^20^ +/- 10^20^ Å
Do they have 0 protons? Because if they do, they should be in the spot above helium
Flyberius [comrade/them]No the ratio of protons neutrons electrons is assumed to be 1:8:1 in the article. It’s a fun read
Evil KittyApparently, I am a top. Link to a quiz
teftGo take the test. It’s pretty funny.
IHeartBadCodeA representation of a binuclear compound of element 10^(56) with an average bond length of 100 quintillion angstroms.
Okay that was funny.
Shouldn’t they be element 0 as they dont have any protons?
The conversion from protons to neutrons does not complete 100% so there are still some (trillion) protons left per “atom”
Didn’t know that, thanks
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 Are they elements? 🤨
Personally, I think it’s high time we went back to just 4 of 'em. Earth, Wind, Water, Fire. It’s so much easier to remember them all.
Do they have protons or only neutrons? because if there are no protons then it is technically just neutronium and not an element,
If they do have protons, then it is safe to assume it is a ridiculous number like 10^40. in which case I would count it as an element. And given how unlikely is for 2 neutron stars to share the number of protons, then every single neutron star is its own element,
And also, because they do not react with other atom, and if 2 collide then they merge their nucleus, we can agree that they are non reactive, and therefore we can consider them noble gasses…
Wait, are they gas?
YES, they are, if there is a single atom floating in space I think that counts as a gas
I don’t think a single neutron star is a gas, but a neutron star binary system is a gas
Earth, Wind and Fire is where it’s at.
In The Stone.
apotheotic (she/her)Do you remember?
The rare reverse-Saddam.
The air vent is actually a particle accelerator shooting neutrons into the periodic table.
The particle is a neutron star
peoplebeproblemsI’ve never seen a reverse-Saddam and I am delighted to say that I’m glad it was in this community.
fossilesqueIt’s a rare Saddam ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:*:・'°☆
Godamn a perfect PSA 10. That is a rare Saddam indeed.
My brother had to look it up.
It’s a real card. $300, he’s gonna try to get one lol
not to scale
The first (last) column makes it look like a Trump style haircut
BodyBySisyphus [he/him]This collapse generates a body of neutron-removed matter with a radius as small as 10 km, but a mass comparable to our Sun’s. As such, they are the densest known material outside of Twitter, at around 1017 kg/m3. For American readers unfamiliar with SI units, that means a pair of truck-nuts made of neutron star would weigh as much as ten million aircraft carriers.
Cooking with TNT
a pair of truck-nuts
new favorite unit
Do they have protons or only neutrons? because if there are no protons then it is technically just neutronium and not an element,
If they do have protons, then it is safe to assume it is a ridiculous number like 10^40. in which case I would count it as an element. And given how unlikely is for 2 neutron stars to share the number of protons, then every single neutron star is its own element,
I’m sure there’s at least more than 200 protons throughout regardless of majority composition
I would argue that, since they lack an electron cloud and are comprised of a collection of free-floating nuclei, they are actually a plasma.
can we say that neuron stars are ions?
wait, are neuton stars positively charged?
Well, we can’t call them atoms, which are defined by the presence of an electron cloud surrounding a nucleus.
When will NASA finally approve my mission to send an electron cloud to a neuton star to force schools to print a periodic tables to include a neutron star.
That sounds like more of an ESA/JAXA joint venture. The only stuff NASA is going to be doing for the foreseeable future is ensuring the rapid exhort of Space Fascism™
If we were to expand the periodic table to include them. would the poster fit within the planet? solar system?universe?
Depends on the font
da_cow (she/her)Here’s what the article says:
Assuming a periodic table in which each element is represented by a 1 cm by 2.5 cm rectangle, 40 rows of 32 elements will take up one meter of space. At this scale, a periodic table incorporating element 10^56^ would need to be 7.82 × 10^52^ meters long. This is problematic, because 7.82 × 10^52^ meters is about 10^37^ lightyears, and the universe is currently estimated span a mere 93 billion lightyears. As such, the new periodic table would be a quadrillion times larger than the observable universe.
The universe is expanding, however, which is good news for chemists and first-home buyers. The rate of this expansion is apparently about 73 km/s for every million parsecs of space, which corresponds to 2 × 106 km/s across the entire universe.8 At that rate, the universe will be able to accommodate the new periodic table in about 10^34^ years.
So it is a matter of time, I’ll star setting up a website and accept preorders for completed periodic tables
Engywook“It is a truth universally acknowledged that no physics problem is complete unless some major component of reality is excluded to simplify the numbers.”
I’ll save this quote for my students. Amazing.
Hupf
Of course there is a relevant xkcd
I highly suggest reading the entire article. That shit is pure comedy gold. Here are some highlights:
IUPAC currently recognises 118 chemical elements. The last twenty have half-lives shorter than Australian prime ministers, and are of equally limited utility to science.
Instead, we have assumed that Rex is comprised of a uniform nucleon fluid, with protons, neutrons and electrons in an idealised 1:8:1 ratio.7 This assumption will have to stand until cosmic-scale mass spectrometers can be developed.
Assuming a periodic table in which each element is represented by a 1 cm by 2.5 cm rectangle, 40 rows of 32 elements will take up one meter of space. At this scale, a periodic table incorporating element 1056 would need to be 7.82 × 1052 meters long. This is problematic, because 7.82 × 1052 meters is about 1037 lightyears, and the universe is currently estimated span a mere 93 billion lightyears. As such, the new periodic table would be a quadrillion times larger than the observable universe.
With the admin out of the way, it is now time to speculate about the chemical properties of the new element. At first, this might seem like your dentist asking you if you’re free at 3:15 on a Thursday afternoon in 2057, but the periodic table is more organised than your calendar.
Being in group 10, we might expect element 1056 to predominantly exhibit 2+ and 4+ oxidation states, and to participate in carbon-carbon cross- coupling reactions. This is unlikely however, because astronomical observations of neutron stars indicate that they do not behave like conventional atoms.
To appropriately study this exciting new branch of astrochemistry the authors have formed a new research institute the Centre for Unstable Neutron Transient Structures (CUNTS). This new institute comprises of two research groups the Baryonic Investigation Group (aka BIG CUNTS) and the Baryonic And Dark Matter Focus (aka BADMF CUNTS). We’re very proud that the exceptional nature of this research group is already being recognised with Amnesty International awarding CUNTS the 2024 Most Inappropriate and Offensive Acronym Award.While pleased to receive international recognition we have not been able to identify any offensive acronym usage and have invited Amnesty International to come and view our Award of Registered Sociopaths Equity (ARSE).
To experimentally verify this hypothesis, we proposed to send chemists to RX J1856.5−3754, but the ARC rejected our grant.
Finally, we considered the nuclear stability of our new element. Rex is radioactive in the literal sense because it emits radio waves.
We hope this paper will prompt someone to go to RX J1856.5−3754 and count its protons, so we can confirm exactly which element it is.
We thank the management of the Alien-Life Molestation Array (ALMA) for allowing us to piss around with their telescopes, while they were having lunch.
That shit almost made me piss myself from laughing.
SkunkWorkz7.81 * 1052 =8216.12 check mate atheist
J/k, you forgot this (づ ᴗ _ᴗ)づ 10^52^ = 10^52^
I just copy pasted it, so thats why its messed up.