08-27-2023, 12:45 AM
Strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of approximately equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. An equivalent description is that a Strangelet is a small piece of strange matter, small enough to be considered a particle. The size of an object composed of foreign matter could theoretically range from a few femtometers in diameter (with the mass of a light nucleus) to arbitrarily large. In theory they can only exist inside neutron stars, although a collision with another neutron star or a black hole could release them and they would wander through space until they collide with an object say a planet or a star converting the mass into matter. weird . Now let's say an advanced civilization discovered how to extract or artificially create and store this material? It could have military applications but also applications in terraforming allowing to convert moons or asteroids near worlds into "artificial stars", the science fiction book The Quantum Thief uses this same idea. Interestingly, some scientists think that strange matter may be more common in the universe than we think, perhaps dark matter itself. For more information: https://youtu.be/p_8yK2kmxoo?si=KuOxf7gD09KXI4rd
