Never-before-seen ‘strange quark star’ may have formed after cosmic collision, physicists say

The universe could comprise extraordinarily dense and unique hypothetical cosmic objects often called unusual quark stars. Whereas astrophysicists proceed to debate quark stars’ existence, a group of physicists has discovered that the remnant of a neutron star merger noticed in 2019 has simply the fitting mass to be considered one of these unusual quark stars.

When stars die (opens in new tab), their cores compress to such unbelievable levels that they grow to be totally new sorts of objects. For instance, when the solar lastly sparkles out (opens in new tab), it should go away behind a white dwarf (opens in new tab), a planet-size ball of extremely compressed carbon and oxygen atoms. When even bigger stars explode in cataclysmic explosions referred to as supernovas (opens in new tab), they go away behind neutron stars. These extremely dense objects are only some miles throughout however can weigh a couple of occasions the mass of the solar. As their title suggests, they’re made nearly totally of pure neutrons, making them basically kilometers-wide atomic nuclei.