Thanks to YouGov for sponsoring this video.
A dark, mysterious object
has appeared at the outer edges
of our Solar System.
It looks like the remnants of a dying star.
But it behaves like a black hole.
Your mission?
Traveling right into its heart of darkness.
I know we've talked
about black holes before.
But let me do a quick recap.
A black hole isn't much different
from any other object with mass.
Except that it’s really, really dense.
All the matter it contains is compressed
into one point called a singularity,
which is so small and so dense
that our understanding of time and space within it breaks down.
That singularity is what causes
black holes to have enormous gravity.
And then, there are neutron stars.
These form when a large star collapses
at the end of its stellar life.
A star that was once 1.5 times more massive than our own Sun
would now only be about 20 km (12 mi) wide.
That's no bigger than a city.
But what you have lurking on the outskirts of the Solar System
is something else entirely.
Too massive to be a neutron star.
Too small to be a black hole.
This is a black neutron star.
Not much is known about these objects.
And we do know,
you’re about to learn the hard way.
This lesson might be a tough one,
but there are some things you have to experience to understand fully.
And once you have that knowledge,
then you can pass on your opinions and experiences
to others like you can on YouGov.
If you haven't heard of YouGov, let me fill you in.
It’s an exciting site that allows you to earn cash
and gift cards by sharing your opinion.
That’s right, you can take online surveys and polls on politics, pop culture,
products and brands and actually get paid.
There’s no cost to sign up,
and you can do the surveys anytime.
I like to do my surveys while I’m on the train.
Yeah, this life hack pays off in the long run.
Look, it’s super easy to get started,
and you can do this anywhere and anytime.
How amazing is that?
I’ve already redeemed a gift card
and taken my family to lunch.
Hey, your opinions matter, so why not get paid for them?
Click the link below and take surveys
to earn cash on YouGov today.
Let your voice be heard now
because if you wait too long,
you might be screaming into the void.
For this scenario,
let's ignore the fact that it would take you
thousands of years to travel
all the way to the outskirts of the Solar System.
Let's imagine that the best scientists on the planet
came up with a way to roam our planetary neighborhood really fast.
And now you'd be observing this gravitational monster up close.
You'd know exactly where a black neutron star
was making its catastrophic approach
because of all the radiation it emits.
This is the same way you’d find
either a black hole or a neutron star.
And just getting close enough
to observe this star won't be enough.
You’d need to venture right into its center.
Your mission would require some protective gear.
And this gear would need to keep you safe
from some of the most intense forces of gravity in the Universe.
So don’t take this preparation lightly.
The black neutron star
would be pulling you toward it with gravity
about two billion times stronger
than what you're used to on Earth.
The problem is that
the kind of intense gravity protection gear you'd need
doesn't exist.
Without it,
your mission would be of the suicidal variety.
As you got closer,
different parts of your body would experience different gravity.
If you were diving into this monstrosity head-first,
your upper body would get stretched a lot more than your legs.
As you got closer to its center, you'd be spaghettified.
Yep, you'd become long and thin
from your head down to your toes.
Just like spaghetti.
Only this would be one brutally painful plate of pasta.
But since you’d be on an incredibly important mission,
you’d have the best equipment you could ever imagine.
The best NASA scientists would supply you with a suit
resistant to the extreme pressures,
temperatures and radioactive matter
inside the black neutron star.
Now would be the time for the task at hand.
You’d dive layer by layer into an object of incredible mass.
It would be like falling into our Sun
if it was squeezed into the size of a small city.
On the outside,
the black neutron star would look like any other kind of star.
Except that it would be really toasty.
Your regular neutron stars are extremely hot,
usually about one million °C (1.8 million °F).
A black neutron star?
Well, you'd have to find out its temperature on your own.
I bet it would be just as scorching.
First, you’d pass through a gaseous layer of hydrogen and helium.
After that, you’d find yourself on more solid ground.
Scientists think that this second layer
would likely be composed of iron and silicon.
To continue your mission,
you'd need to somehow punch through this blazing,
solid surface.
Well, lucky for you,
NASA equipped you with a super powerful drill
that can withstand the heat.
And things would start getting dangerously dense.
Hope those guys at NASA made you an extremely durable suit too.
Down at the heart of the black neutron star,
you'd notice a unique material,
one of the strangest in the Universe.
Scientists call it nuclear pasta.
Inside the neutron star,
the nuclear clusters
get packed so densely
they create the hardest matter ever known.
At least this time it’s not you that’s turned into spaghetti.
If all this talk of you being turned into some sort of food item
has you worried,
well, brace yourself.
The madness would just be getting started.
Now you’d be so deep that the intense
levels of pressure around you
would be about
three times higher than the density of an atomic nucleus.
Protons and electrons would combine into neutrons.
Hey, now you know how neutron stars got their name.
As these newly formed neutrons start to overlap more and more,
you’d keep traveling further and further down.
Eventually, you’d find yourself face-to-face
with the squished components of neutrons and protons.
Quarks.
Finally approaching the core of the black neutron star,
you’d be nearing maximum bizarreness.
Of all the squishy quarks surrounding you,
there would be some so weird
that scientists call them 'strange quarks.'
These quarks are heavier than other quarks
and they've earned their name
by possessing a property known as strangeness.
All it means is that strange quarks
have less chance of being torn apart
by the black neutron star's electromagnetism.
Inside this core,
the strange quarks would form a soupy mixture
known simply as strange matter.
And encountering strange matter
would be the very end of the journey for you.
Strange matter is contagious.
That means when it comes into contact
with ordinary matter, like you,
it would generate more strange matter.
So as soon as you’d touch it,
it would instantly dissolve your protective gear
and immediately after that, your whole body.
Maybe it would’ve been better to avoid all this strangeness
and fall into a regular black hole instead.
Well, that’s a story
for another WHAT IF.
Thanks again to YouGov for sponsoring this video.