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What would happen if you were to remove matter from a neutron star?
Many times you hear about how much neutron star matter would weigh by volume. Comparisons like "a sphere no larger that Brooklyn would weigh 500,000 times the size of the Earth", "one teaspoon would weigh as much as 900 Pyramids of Giza", and so forth and so on.
Now since a neutron star is stellar matter compressed under it's own gravitational pull into a quantum degenerative state where the neutrons are jammed together against their own nature and not wanting to be that close together...
The question is "What would happen to that Quantum Degenerative matter if it were no longer part of the gravitational pull of the rest of the neutron star? Would it remain compressed into Neutron Star Matter, or once free of the intense gravitational forces would it spring out and decompress?"
1 Answer
- morningstarLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
Because of the high density, if the neutrons in a neutron star were to beta decay, they would produce an election with a high energy. The low-energy quantum states are already occupied by a relatively few electrons, as compared to the number of neutrons. The high energy of the electron means that unlike usual, the total mass-energy of the electron + proton that would be produced by beta decay is more than the mass-energy of the neutron, and it does not decay.
If you take it out of that high-density environment, it will beta decay, rapidly, until you have about the same number of protons and neutrons, maybe slightly more than 50% neutrons, as in normal matter. It will also rapidly fission into normal sized nuclei. Either that, or the fission will come first and then the beta decay, or a little bit at the same time. Anyway, end result, yes, normal matter will come back.
