This is strange matter. But strange matter from just after the Big Bang could not have survived up until now. Quarks come in several varieties, including up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange. Some observed neutron stars are too small, or too cool, or are associated with supernova that were too bright and lasted too long. And when heavy particles bind together, they convert a large chunk of their mass into binding energy, and in some cases, produce a bunch of leftover energy that escapes into the universe. This is possible because mass eigenstates with which we actually define generations are not the same as interaction eigenstates. One of the best things about the show is how delightfully strange and silly most of these powers are. 4 hours ago — Mark Fischetti and Steve Mirsky, 8 hours ago — Avery Ellfeldt and E&E News, Scientific American Space & Physics is a roundup of the most important stories about the universe and beyond. Now, charm quarks are very heavy compared to the more common up and down quarks that make up protons and neutrons. This evaporation is also the main reason why strange matter doesn’t make a convincing dark matter candidate. Quarks are. The quark-gluon plasma created in the collision will recondense, with the material composition somewhat randomized, with the possible creation of "strange-matter" (particles of which are called strangelets) which has an excess of strange quarks. However, there’s no way for us to know whether or not strange matter is actually stable. That charmed fusion was the first reaction of particles on this scale ever found to emit energy in this way, and is the headline result of the new study, published Nov. 1 in the journal Nature. Karliner said he expects to see the first experiments showing this reaction at CERN within the next couple years. But each of those individual reactions inside the bombs releases only about 18 MeV, according to the Nuclear Weapon Archive, a website devoted to collecting research and data about nuclear weapons. This "quarksplosion" would be an even more powerful subatomic analog of the individual nuclear fusion reactions that take place in the cores of hydrogen bombs. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]. When scientists take into account the early conditions of the universe, thermodynamics, and the expected properties of strange matter, analyses show time and again that strange matter would have evaporated as conditions cooled, lasting until only a second after the Big Bang explosion. The mass of the s-quark is about 95 MeV. Indeed, my last variable star blog post was regarding a southern nova in March 2018. © 2020 Scientific American, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc. Support our award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology. For anyone following Strange Quarks, you will have noticed my preoccupation with other things in recent months. It’s the reason some call strange matter “the most dangerous substance in the universe”. Copyright 2017 SPACE.com, a Purch company. As they hit some limit, they converting from a regular neutron star to one made of strange quarks. Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at, Beyond Higgs: 5 Elusive Particles That May Lurk in the Universe, Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature, The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics, Images: Inside the World's Top Physics Labs, Mystery of Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Gets Trickier, Physicists Announce Potential Dark Matter Breakthrough, In the Hunt for Planet Nine, Astronomers Eye a New Search Technique, NASA's OSIRIS-REx Is Overflowing with Asteroid Samples, NASA's OSIRIS-REx Successfully Touches Asteroid Bennu.