CHEMISTS IN A BIG WORLD!

Ok, Here is the second page, the truth and craziness behind the neutron star, also known as the fifth state of matter. What is it? Where is it? Who is it? ( pinky to lip like dr. Evil) Here, you will find out what the neutron star is and what some chemists and                                                                        astronomers today are doing about it.

Here is an example of how tiny a neutron star is compared to living stars around it.

What is a neutron star? Basically, simply, to put it in lamen's terms, it is a burnt out star made mostly of neutrons. Therefore, the star doesn't glow! Heat in a living star "counteracts" gravity, causing all of the star's particles to push outward. When a star "dies", there isn't this counteraction, and so the star collapses, causing a neutron star, white dwarf star, or black hole to form. The classification is based on size ; a neutron star is about 3 times the mass of the sun, but very compact.

Here is a filament......wow- read about these in the red box!

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO                  WITH CHEMISTRY?!!!!!!! I'll tell you if you really want to know.....a supernova explosion, as said before, is essentially what makes a neutron star. This all has to do with a very specicfic arrangement of elements.  The process of the explosion is as follows: 1.Hydrogen is a young star. When a nuclear reaction happens., hydrogen is converted into  helium! 2. Energy is still left- the star's "radiation" of light and heat. A new reaction begins- Helium becomes Carbon. 3. Carbon becomes Oxygen. 4. Oxygen becomes Silicon. 5. Silcon becomes Iron. 6 Iron becomes.....nothing. The reaction- nuclear fusion- says buh bye when it reaches Iron. Here is a  picture of what half of an old old old star MIGHT look like:

WAIT! THERE IS A STEP 7! 7. Hydrogen, Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, and Silicon are still burning aroun the core of Iron. ( when a star is alive) When the core is so large it has to collapse, it does so. 8. Then ( isn't this exciting?) the other all important layers fall into the star, hitting the iron core and going boom boom by bouncing back through "shock waves". Thus, an explosion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, compare this to the one above. HMMM...Pretty big next to Chicago huh?

More about CHEMISTRY and the object called the NEUTRON  STAR........

The neutron star is in an interesting group. Because chemists today knowthat there are at least five states of matter ( Bose-Einstein condensation at 0 degrees, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma), the neutron star, as well as other space dwelling things (flares, solar coronae, jets at black holes) present a (gasp!) startling complex. What state of matter do they belong to? Scientists decided to call these filaments, and dubbed them the fifth state of matter. Bose Einstein is the the zero state because it is at the lowest temperature, while filaments have the most energy of any other state. ( Even New York), and are therefore the fifth state.  In filaments, many things are unique. While the other five states have either no motion or move in all three dimensions, filaments move ony in one direction, because they are non thermal and therefore do not have the thermal zig zag that solids, liquids and gases do. What does this mean to us? Well, since these filaments clearly do not exist on Earth, they are fairly useless .....except that they pretty much prove that no other state of matter exists. In what has been found out about matter as we know it, the filaments have the highest amount of energy possible; they are non-thermal but do not give off light or heat, and they move so quickly that they move in only one direction. This clarifys that the neutron star and its buddies are the last state of matter that will probably ever be found. However, it is safe to say taht no one will stop looking, right?

WHAT ELSE IS COOL ABOUT THE NEUTRON STAR?

1.They are very dense and fairly small for space, with a radius of only 10-15 kilometers! 2.Some of these super cool stars emit radio waves called pulsars. Pulsars appear to be turning on and off, but they don't really, it just appears that way from Earth. This is because waves only come out of the North and South magnetic poles of the star, and the star spins. Therefore, the waves only hit Earth when the North or South pole lets out a wave at a certain point. 3. We detect neutron stars through X rays, essentially, which are emitted when dust particles or other particles are sucked into a neutron star from things surrounding it. 4. A neutron star let's things escape it, unlike a black hole, at 77% the speed of light. Sweet.

Here is a diagram of my cool explaination in the purple box.....kind of. minus the kind of.

Here is a sweet x ray pic to show you how scientists can detect the neutron star.

Links/ bibliography!!!!

http:/ astro.umd.edu http://electric-universe.de/scripts/six_states.html www.eclipse.net/~cmmiller/BH/blkmain.html