Quark stars are extremely compressed objects theorized to form 1% of all neutron stars. Candidates have been observed, but more evidence is needed for confirmation. Quark stars are even more compact than neutron stars, with quarks replacing neutrons. A quark nova may occur when a neutron star collapses into a quark star, potentially causing impressive explosions like gamma-ray bursts.
A quark star is an extremely compressed exotic object, theorized to form about 1% of all neutron stars, which in turn reliably form upon the collapse of stars with 1.5 – 3.0 solar masses. Quark stars have not been conclusively observed, but two promising candidates were recorded by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory on April 10, 2002. Another candidate has since been identified, but more evidence is needed before the existence of quark stars quark stars can be positively confirmed with a low margin of error.
Stars with more than 1.35 solar masses, but less than 3 or so (less than the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit), eventually catastrophically collapse into a neutron star, a compact object the size of a small city. A single teaspoon of neutron star matter weighs a billion tons (over 1.1 billion tons). Gravity is so strong that the tallest “mountains” on a neutron star are only a few millimeters high. The quark star is a theorized even more compact object than a neutron star. In a neutron star, it’s the degeneracy pressure between the neutrons that keeps the body from collapsing into a black hole – in a quark star, it’s the pressure between the quarks.
In a neutron star, all electrons fuse with protons to create nothing but neutrons. A neutron star can be viewed as a single gigantic atom, a nucleus composed entirely of neutrons surrounded by a thin shell of electrons. In a quark star, the constituent quarks of neutrons are thrown off and recombined, transforming from the familiar up and down quarks, which make up all particles on Earth, to the more massive strange quarks, which we know only from high-energy quarks accelerator experiments of particles. A quark star can be viewed as a single gigantic hadron (proton or neutron), but with many quadrillion quarks instead of the usual three.
When a neutron star collapses into a quark star, it is theorized to cause an event called a quark nova. The process by which quarks are deconfined by neutrons would release tremendous energy, even more than the most energetic nuclear reactions, producing perhaps the most impressive explosions since the Big Bang. It may be that the mysterious gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are actually quark novae.
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