"When a star dies, the violent ending can lead to the birth of a neutron star. Neutron stars are real heavyweights in the universe – a teaspoon of the several-kilometer celestial body would weigh a billion tons. There is an unimaginable size difference between the atomic nucleus of the isotope lead-208 and a neutron star, but it is largely the same physics that describes their properties."
"Now researchers at Chalmers have developed a new computational model to study the atomic nucleus of lead. The 126 neutrons (red) in the nucleus form an outer envelope, which can be described as a skin. How thick the skin is, is linked to the strong force. By predicting the thickness of the neutron skin, knowledge can increase about how the strong force works – both in atomic nuclei and in neutron stars. Credit: JingChen | Chalmers University of Technology | Yen Strandqvist" (Scitechdaily.com/Mysteries of the Universe Revealed Under the Skin of an Atomic Nucleus)
The mystery of the universe is how the material or heavy elements form. All material, as we know it, formed in an event called the Big Bang that released all elementary particles into space. And then those elementary particles formed hadrons and atoms.
The first atoms were hydrogen and then formed the first stars. Inside stars hydrogen turns to helium. And later helium fusion starts to form heavier elements. But when we are talking about the heaviest elements. There is a mystery with those heavy elements. Like gold, and finally uranium we must realize that only heaviest, and hottest stars can form those elements.
But when are those elements forming? Are they forming in fusion reactions? Or is the supernova eruption the thing that forms those elements? There is of course possible that things like neutron star collisions can form elements like gold and uranium.
The problem with that model is that neutron stars are homogeneous neutron balls. There are no protons at all. But if neutron star collisions are making the heaviest elements there are two ways how that thing can happen.
The first model is that radiation or energy impact between colliding neutron stars turns another d (down)-quark into a u (up)-quark. That thing turns a neutron into a proton. Another version is that the radiation that the colliding neutron stars send causes fusion around those neutron stars.
If researchers can prove that thing it will make it possible to create models of extremely high-energy reactions. When a supernova explodes it forms a neutron star or black hole. If the star's mass is so low that it cannot form gravitation that pulls light inside it, the remnant of the supernova is a neutron star.
When a neutron star is forming massive gravitation turns all protons into neutrons. And the thing that keeps a neutron star in its form is the interaction between the neutron's poles.
So we can say that the weak interaction is dominating in the neutron stars. The same force keeps the atom's nucleus in its form. But if there is a counter-reaction where neutrons turn to protons that thing would be fundamental.
https://scitechdaily.com/mysteries-of-the-universe-revealed-under-the-skin-of-an-atomic-nucleus/
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