Tagged Questions
6
votes
2answers
119 views
What stabilizes neutorns against beta decay in a neutron star?
Free neutrons are known to undergo beta decay with a half-life of slightly above 10 minutes. Binding with other nucleons stabilizes the neutrons in an atomic nucleus, but only if the fraction of ...
5
votes
3answers
215 views
We're all star dust?
OK so we've all heard of this from Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss and others and we know the argumentation, I don't refute that. There are other examples, for instance I once calculated (this was before ...
6
votes
2answers
161 views
Is the speed of sound almost as high as the speed of light in neutron stars?
Have you ever wondered about the elastic properties of neutron stars?
Such stars, being immensely dense, in which neutrons are bound together by the strong nuclear force on top of the strong gravity ...
3
votes
2answers
140 views
Pressures Necessary for Carbon Detonation
Carbon detonation is a characteristic event of Type 1a Supernova (EDIT: where an accreting white dwarf near the Chandrashankar limit of 1.4 solar masses explodes), an extremely important standard ...
5
votes
3answers
280 views
Do neutron stars reflect light?
The setup is very simple: you have a regular ($1.35$ to $2$ solar masses) evolved neutron star, and you shine plane electromagnetic waves on it with given $\lambda$. Very roughly, what shall be the ...
7
votes
1answer
172 views
How would nucleosynthesis be different if the neutron were stable?
If the strong nuclear force were just 2% stronger, the neutron would be a stable particle instead of having a half life of about 13 minutes. What difference would that have made to Big Bang ...
4
votes
2answers
659 views
Origin of elements heavier than Iron (Fe)
In all the discussions about how the heavy elements in the universe are forged in the guts of stars and especially during a stars death, I usually hear that once the star begins fusing lighter atoms ...
10
votes
3answers
876 views
Age of the Earth and the star that preceded the Sun
One of the great unheralded advances made in the history of science was the ability to determine the age of Earth based on the decay of isotopic uranium. Based on the apparent abundance of uranium in ...
