Colliding neutron stars decapitate zombie theory of . 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is out! See table below. 172.68.24.118 13:53, 18 September 2020 (UTC), Um, I didnt have to solve a catchpa to edit. 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. I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it. "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. Inbox, #4, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? This is the type of star that. 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. book series or on the blog. -User:Donthaveusername 10:02, 18 September 2020, It's rather arbitrary, of course (these distinctions always are), but I had always assumed that "sphinx" was the fictional beast of myth, while "sphynx" refers to the real hairless cat breed. All rights reserved. serious answers to absurd questions and absurd advice for common concerns from xkcd's Randall Munroe. The "bullet catch" is a common magic trick in which a magician appears to catch a fired bullet in mid-flightoften between their teeth. 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. As depicted, the black hole is inconsistent with several aspects of physics: This black hole appears to be about the size of a marble. 2023 CNET, a Red Ventures company. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. 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. would change Earth's radiation balance, trapping heat near the surface and raising the planet's temperature. What If? Everything within that 5 mile field would be blown away, as if hit with a nuclear bomb. Want CNET to notify you of price drops and the latest stories? 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. comics from xkcd. A tiny piece of a comet would float for a short time until it became waterlogged, melted, and broke apart. Can I leave an internship for another internship? 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. All human structures will stay. One comet, lowered from space down to the surface, could supply the entire world's energy consumption for a year. What If? These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. I've seen quite a bit of that on this page. Lightcaller (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Wat. Your pendulum clock would now be ahead by five days. This means that the accreting gas can spiral very close to the neutron star before it is grabbed by the magnetic field. In the scenario where the atmosphere isn't expanding, the air would become thin enough to be difficult to breathe even at sea level. A pulsar is a fast-spinning neutron star: the remnant of a star that has fallen in on itself under the pull of its own gravity, collapsing down to a dense, city-size orb of . Therefore, only the surfaces can cool by the emission of such radiation. 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. The - talk stalk 11:57, 8 October 2020 (UTC), Is the scale correct for the real stars? Neutron stars have an important role in the universe. We can use the Doppler effect to measure the orbital motion of a pulsar. The comet isn't the important part, the crane is. So unless you stood right next to the spoon, you wouldnt notice. Filled with bonkers science, boundless curiosity, and Randalls signature stick-figure comics, What If? Far-Traveling Objects March 4, 2014. This is a list of What If? \[ x=0.00001118\text{ parsecs}=2.3\text{ AU} \] 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. This is a list of What If? Small chunks of ice falling from space disintegrate and boil away . It's a shame humans wouldn't live this long, because at this point, something really neat would happen. X-ray: NASA/CXC/UNAM/Ioffe/D.Page, P. Shternin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. It does not store any personal data. Article title. If you don't have a balloon, you could potentially make this work from a mountain peak. The star starts fusing helium to carbon, like lower-mass stars. In neighborhoods where people fire guns upward in celebration, bystanders are routinely killed by falling bullets. articles, published either in Randall Munroe's What If? 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 spoonful of neutron star suddenly appearing on Earths surface would cause a giant explosion, and it would probably vaporize a good chunk of our planet with it. Order here! The satellites would stay in roughly the same orbits, but the delicate timing that the GPS system is based on would be completely ruined within hours. Can a planet still function with a damaged moon? 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. Hall thrusters go argon with Starlink V2 mini. Answer (1 of 22): Summary - This is fictional. [2] what if? 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 . The pressure inside planets is roughly proportional to the square of their surface area, so the Earth's core would be squeezed tightly. (Full text here.) 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. Is there any way to fire a gun so that the bullet flies through the air and can then be safely caught by hand? The millions of people around the world who read and loved What If? That size implies a black hole can often swallow a neutron star whole. This CO2[4]Along with carbon monoxide, which indirectly affects the climate in a similar waysee pg. 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. But what if we took just a spoonful of it and transported it to Earth? Inbox, #7, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? 0:52. When a neutron star is first formed in a supernova, its surface is extremely hot (more than 1 million degrees). [8]See What-If #64. As the Earth grows, the Moon would, like all our satellites, gradually spiral inward. 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. After a year, gravity would be 5% stronger. Blue giant: 2-400 R; 2-300 M, 8000-60000 K, 15-10000000 L. The nature of matter under these conditions is a decades-old unsolved problem. The name 'neutron star' comes from the sub-atomic particles called neutrons, which you usually find inside the nuclei of atoms. The series is produced by Marvel Studios and was released on Disney+. 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. "Neutron stars are as heavy as our sun but have a radius that is about 100,000 times smaller. Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems, More Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, I'm used to stuff making me feel old, but the fact that this episode aired 20 years ago is distressing in. It no longer burns hydrogen, helium . 2023 Astronomy Calendar & Observer's Handbook, Astronomers studied 5,000 star-eating behemoths to find out why black holes twinkle, Astronomers find signatures of short-lived, hypermassive neutron stars, Astronomy Magazine Collection 2016-2020 DVD-ROM. Despite all this, your scenario could fix global warming. Magical storks deliver babies, magical cranes deliver comets. Trees would collapse. Time is the only remedy for such puzzling cosmic mysteries. Breathing in this situation would be difficult. This an illusion, of course; it's not possible to catch a bullet like that. At this point, the star is simply getting . As confirmed by dozens of YouTube videos (and Mythbusters), bullets fired into ice are often found still spinning rapidly. After years had passed, the top of Mt. What about our roads and bridges? Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Water that goes over Niagara Falls, for example, gains enough kinetic energy during the 50-meter plunge to warm it up by about 0.1C by the time it reaches the bottom. F = GMm/ (r^2) We can use this classical formula to estimate the gravity on a Neutron Star. So while you could lift a spoonful of Sun, you cant lift a spoonful of neutron star. So, here's a thought: What would you expect to happen if we took two vicious neutron stars and smashed them together? and gently set the comet in the ocean. Similarly, it's so hard to get enough neutrinos to compel even a single one of them to interact with matter, making it hard to picture a scenario in which there'd be enough of them to affect you. The #1 New York Timesbestselling author of What If? :P 172.69.63.201 14:44, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Question: What is the style guide for British vs. American Spelling (e.g., Color vs. Colour) in explain xkcd? 3.262 light-years, or a little less than the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Use the fact that a Neutron Star has about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, that the sun's mass is about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth, and that the radius is about 10 kilometers (as opposed to the Earth's radius of 6371 kilometers). Soda Sequestration March 18, 2014. This stylized animation shows the structure of a neutron star. Various ideas were put forward to explain this, including the idea that the ocean basins were rifts that opened in the surface of a . Inbox, #3, Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Most of the Earth's heat is provided by radioactive decay of minerals in the crust and mantle,[12]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. How close would you have to be to a supernova to get a lethal dose of neutrino radiation? "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. 162.158.103.125 11:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC), Teal Sphinx? (Heavier stars produce stellar-mass black holes.) [4]As it turns out, the ocean is expanding, since it's getting warmer. How do I move data from one tab to another in Excel? The embedded Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or . 4 (2002): 491-499. Before publishing the first what if? 172.68.24.130 11:02, 30 November 2020 (UTC), No, not really. Too Perfect. At this point, astronauts on the ISS would start getting worried.