This collision forms a minuscule fireball in which everything “melts” into a quark-gluon plasma, creating an ultra-dense phase of quark matter, known as a quark star. The gases inside such an extremely dense star create a lot of pressure, which can cause the protons and neutrons inside the star to smash into each other with a ton of energy. Despite their enormous size, they pack their nuclear matter in an extremely small space, increasing their density by so much that a teaspoon of their nuclear matter would weigh billions of tons. They are huge interstellar objects with an average mass of 1.4 times the mass of the sun. A combination of quarks and gluons in a chemically stable composition is referred to as QGP and is believed to be distributed throughout the universe in its early stages.Īmong the numerous variety of existing stars, one of the most peculiar is a neutron star. Another type of subatomic particle called gluons holds the quark matter together. Up quarks are oriented upward, down quarks point downward, and strange quarks are named for their strangely long lifetime-so long that they eventually decay into up and down quarks. Multiple scientists like Walter Bodmer (1971) have theorized that quark matter consists of up, down, and strange quarks. Deep inside the atoms are particles called protons and neutrons, which are further composed of “quarks,” one of the fundamental blocks of matter.

But some stars escaped not only my memory but also my vision, for they are nowhere to be found to anyone! These stars are called the quark stars.Įvery object in our universe is made of atoms. Within a few months, I could name nearly all major stars in constellations. I spent hours tracing major stars like Polaris and constellations like Ursa Minor in the sky.

As a kid with myopia or short-sightedness, I was recommended by the doctors to gaze upon the stars in the night sky in order to improve my vision.

Quark science