Quark Stars
Fri 19 Jun
|Institute of Astronomy
According to Wikipedia, "a quark star is a hypothetical type of compact, exotic star, where extremely high core temperature and pressure have forced nuclear particles to form quark matter, a continuous state of matter consisting of free quarks". Our Chairman, Paul Fellows BEM, will tell us more
Time & Location
19 Jun 2026, 20:00 – 21:30
Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
About The Event
Quark Stars are hypothesised to be extremely exotic objects with some very strange properties. Paul will take us through the latest wierd and wonderful thinking. To get you interested, here is what Wikipedia has to say about them.
"Some massive stars collapse to form neutron stars at the end of their life cycle, as has been both observed and explained theoretically. Under the extreme temperatures and pressures inside neutron stars, the neutrons are normally kept apart by a degeneracy pressure, stabilizing the star and hindering further gravitational collapse. However, it is hypothesized that under even more extreme temperature and pressure, the degeneracy pressure of the neutrons is overcome, and the neutrons are forced to merge and dissolve into their constituent quarks, creating an ultra-dense phase of quark matter based on densely packed quarks. In this state, a new equilibrium is supposed to emerge, as a new degeneracy pressure between the…