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Tough and Tougher
05/07/09 11:52 AM
What's a LOT stronger than steel?
As well all know, steel is pretty tough stuff. Not as hard as some new space age alloy perhaps, but still mighty difficult to dent.
However, astronomers have found another substance in the cosmos that is far tougher than steel, diamonds or anything else on Earth. It's a "crust" actually, although nothing like the kind you bite through when chomping on pizza. This particular crust is the outer layer of a neutron star.
Now, a neutron star is essentially an old sun (a lot bigger than ours) that has burned out and imploded into a relatively tiny and unimaginably dense core of leftover matter. Many neutron stars are small enough to fit into Central Park in New York City. But if you put one there, it might turn the neighborhood into a sink hole. You see, just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh in at about 100 million tons. Very dense, very heavy and, as it turns out, very very tough.
In fact, the crust of a neutron star is estimated to be about 10 billion times stronger than the toughest metal alloy on our planet. Kirk and Spock wouldn't be able to blast through, even with their entire arsenal of phasers and photo torpedoes.
How did the crust get so incredibly hard? Gravity. When you take the massive amount of matter in a big star and then shrink that down into a very tiny and dense orb, you get this super-tough stuff.
So while human metallurgy is indeed impressive, the cosmic variety wins the galactic "Iron Man" contest.
However, astronomers have found another substance in the cosmos that is far tougher than steel, diamonds or anything else on Earth. It's a "crust" actually, although nothing like the kind you bite through when chomping on pizza. This particular crust is the outer layer of a neutron star.
Now, a neutron star is essentially an old sun (a lot bigger than ours) that has burned out and imploded into a relatively tiny and unimaginably dense core of leftover matter. Many neutron stars are small enough to fit into Central Park in New York City. But if you put one there, it might turn the neighborhood into a sink hole. You see, just one teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh in at about 100 million tons. Very dense, very heavy and, as it turns out, very very tough.
In fact, the crust of a neutron star is estimated to be about 10 billion times stronger than the toughest metal alloy on our planet. Kirk and Spock wouldn't be able to blast through, even with their entire arsenal of phasers and photo torpedoes.
How did the crust get so incredibly hard? Gravity. When you take the massive amount of matter in a big star and then shrink that down into a very tiny and dense orb, you get this super-tough stuff.
So while human metallurgy is indeed impressive, the cosmic variety wins the galactic "Iron Man" contest.