Scientists Discover Nuclear Fission Amongst the Stars (space.com) 31
For the first time, scientists have discovered nuclear fission occurring amongst the stars, supporting the idea that neutron stars create "superheavy" elements when they collide, which then break down via nuclear fission to birth rare elements. Space.com reports: Nuclear fission is basically the opposite of nuclear fusion. While nuclear fusion refers to the smashing of lighter elements to create heavier elements, nuclear fission is a process that sees energy released when heavy elements split apart to create lighter elements. Nuclear fission is pretty well known, too. It's actually the basis of energy-generating nuclear power plants here on Earth -- however, it had not been seen occurring amongst the stars before now.
The team of researchers led by North Carolina State University scientist Ian Roederer searched data concerning a wide range of elements in stars to discover the first evidence that nuclear fission could therefore be acting when neutron stars merge. These findings could help solve the mystery of where the universe's heavy elements come from. Scientists know that nuclear fusion is not just the primary source of energy for stars, but also the force that forges a variety of elements, the "heaviest" being iron.
The evidence of nuclear fission discovered by [Matthew Mumpower, research co-author and a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory] and the team comes in the form of a correlation between "light precision metals," like silver, and "rare earth nuclei," like europium, showing in some stars. When one of these groups of elements goes up, the corresponding elements in the other group also increases, the scientists saw. The team's research also indicates that elements with atomic masses -- counts of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus -- greater than 260 may exist around neutron star smashes, even if this existence is brief. This is much heavier than many of the elements at the "heavy end" of the periodic table. "The only plausible way this can arise among different stars is if there is a consistent process operating during the formation of the heavy elements," Mumpower said. "This is incredibly profound and is the first evidence of fission operating in the cosmos, confirming a theory we proposed several years ago."
"As we've acquired more observations, the cosmos is saying, 'hey, there's a signature here, and it can only come from fission.'"
The research was published in the journal Science.
The team of researchers led by North Carolina State University scientist Ian Roederer searched data concerning a wide range of elements in stars to discover the first evidence that nuclear fission could therefore be acting when neutron stars merge. These findings could help solve the mystery of where the universe's heavy elements come from. Scientists know that nuclear fusion is not just the primary source of energy for stars, but also the force that forges a variety of elements, the "heaviest" being iron.
The evidence of nuclear fission discovered by [Matthew Mumpower, research co-author and a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory] and the team comes in the form of a correlation between "light precision metals," like silver, and "rare earth nuclei," like europium, showing in some stars. When one of these groups of elements goes up, the corresponding elements in the other group also increases, the scientists saw. The team's research also indicates that elements with atomic masses -- counts of protons and neutrons in an atomic nucleus -- greater than 260 may exist around neutron star smashes, even if this existence is brief. This is much heavier than many of the elements at the "heavy end" of the periodic table. "The only plausible way this can arise among different stars is if there is a consistent process operating during the formation of the heavy elements," Mumpower said. "This is incredibly profound and is the first evidence of fission operating in the cosmos, confirming a theory we proposed several years ago."
"As we've acquired more observations, the cosmos is saying, 'hey, there's a signature here, and it can only come from fission.'"
The research was published in the journal Science.
What a stupid headline. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, what has been proposed is that collision of neutron stars emit a large amount of free neutrons, which then proceed to produce fast-decaying atoms of super-heavy elements, which then, unsurprisingly, decay by fission.
Clickbait Flair, ala Office Space. (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, what has been proposed is that collision of neutron stars emit a large amount of free neutrons, which then proceed to produce fast-decaying atoms of super-heavy elements, which then, unsurprisingly, decay by fission.
Sounds cool, but where's the clickbait flair?
We should strive to wear at least 37 pieces of flair per headline. Like Brian does. Sure his breath smells like bullshit, but he's smilin'...
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I apologize.
No surprise (Score:2)
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This seems to fit into the patten:
Everybody suspects this is true.
Nobody has measured it yet.
Ope, there it is!
Good job - everybody gets a citation.
It may not be glamorous but most solid science is trivially incremental. The sum of the effort produces occasional emergent revolutionary results.
But often confirmation of long-held theories makes the news.
Star Wars (Score:3)
Re:Star Wars (Score:4, Interesting)
It's possible that the basic fission-triggered fusion bomb design would still be best, even for alien wars. We would detect small fission events along side a sub-stellar burst of fusion--but not very often. A civilization inclined to do that would probably do it on a smaller scale. How sad would it be if we detected the signature of a global nuclear exchange adjacent to a nearby star? Would it teach us a lesson or not?
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It would probably just indicate to those that are able to build nuclear weapons need to build a lot more to close the interstellar nuclear weapon gap.
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I read a story in some Sci Fi anthology or magazine where a lone astronomer monitoring a radio telescope finds a continuous stream of encrypted data between two star systems and comes to the realization that these two systems are at war with one another. He decides to destroy all the records and kills himself to prevent (or at least delay) the world from finding out we have conquistador aliens in our back yard.
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Short answer: probably not. [arxiv.org]
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It's much more likely that our civilization would be detected from what we've done to the planet's atmosphere. Noticing a brief flash from a nuke would require constant monitoring, while the atmospheric changes can be seen in surveys done just once per century. Constant monitoring would likely only occur after a civilization is detected in other ways. Depending on how wasteful the hypothetical aliens are with their resources of course. If they have essentially unlimited energy, they've been watching the pla
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That’s the neat thing, people keep thinking it will be our tv shows or am radio that will leak to the stars and be heard. But the easiest to detect signals from earth are the radio waves that are so powerful they will cause unshielded circuits to fry in a massive area with voltages as high as 50,000 volts/meter over many kilometers, the EMP of nuclear weapons. That’s what aliens will hear the loudest and thus likely first.
So far there has only been one large EMP event ever generated which was the 1.4 megaton Starfish Prime event so this is the only such signal out there (and it is only one single pulse).
A 1.4 megaton high altitude EMP explosion [sciencedirect.com] produces an EMP signal of about 5*10^11 J in a pulse 500 microsecond long for a total omnidirectional signal of 10^15 W in a bandwidth of 100 MHZ.
The most detectable repeated emitted of pulses are the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) radars [nasa.gov] that emit a powerful narrow ba
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So far there has only been one large EMP event ever generated which was the 1.4 megaton Starfish Prime event so this is the only such signal out there (and it is only one single pulse).
Actually that may or may not be the largest [wikipedia.org]
of the high atmosphere/space explosions we don’t have all the information to know for sure and more than just one explosion was carried out. In any case, the gamma rays of a nuclear explosion create the emp by interaction with the atmosphere [wikipedia.org] and a russian one of 350kt (supposedly) definitely fried a massive area as well, I wouldn’t count something that’s perhaps 1/4 the power as a petawatt pulse not existing. All in all, hundreds of atmospheric
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Since the expected number of ballistic nukes flying over the South Pole is likely to be low ("likely", not "certain" - I can think of at least one counter-argument ; whether that's enough to untie the purse strings ... meh.), that would project to cover ... a quarter? a sixt
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It was the encrypted (damn near white noise) and continuous (to defeat traffic analysis) nature of the signal that told the astronomer in the story that it was wartime comms. They were heard because they were intended to be heard by their own forces. We just happened to be close enough to the beam direction to hear it too.
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How sad would it be if we detected the signature of a global nuclear exchange adjacent to a nearby star? Would it teach us a lesson or not?
You ask that question on a planet full of trigger-happy warmongers who carved this rock up into Yours vs. Mine, with the nuclear capacity to destroy it completely 1,000 times over.
Any lesson to be learned was destroyed in a mushroom cloud, long ago. Because Greed.
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It's possible that the basic fission-triggered fusion bomb design would still be best, even for alien wars. We would detect small fission events along side a sub-stellar burst of fusion--but not very often. A civilization inclined to do that would probably do it on a smaller scale. How sad would it be if we detected the signature of a global nuclear exchange adjacent to a nearby star? Would it teach us a lesson or not?
In our current political atmosphere? It'd be the one way to unite a large portion of the globe. "We must prepare ourselves, and arm ourselves against the coming onslaught from the alien invasion. If we are determined enough, we can take that war to them before they find us! WE MUST DEFEND OUR FREEDUMBS!" Mic doesn't get cut aside, "Hopefully they have oil."
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Not if the combatants choose not to use real weapons but simulated attacks [wikipedia.org] with real people having to die. We'd never see any signatures of fission weapons.
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Physicists see fission signatures and think its happening naturally. I prefer to think the aliens are having nuclear wars. I am just wicked that way.
Oooh, now we're talking badassery. Where's a Netflix director and budget when you need one...
Undiscovered heavy elements (Score:5, Interesting)
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Seems like this would be a way to discover some often-theorized slow-decay or stable super-heavy elements
Presuming they actually exist. Given our understanding of quantum mechanics, I don't put a lot of stock in our own predictions.
even just regular fast-decay undiscovered elements.
The fast-decaying elements that we do know only last for a tiny sliver of time, much shorter than a second. It would be to generate a HUGE amount of the stuff to actually be able to detect any of it, presuming we correctly predict the radiation spectra that it would give off.
Haven't seen this before because... (Score:2)
"Because breakin' up is hard to do"