Fwd: [orions_arm] Exotic Prospecting
Bryan Bishop
From: gunther_charles <gunther...@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Subject: [orions_arm] Exotic Prospecting
To: orion...@yahoogroups.com
When we finally move out and colonize our solar system, the vast
mineral resources alone could afford us the ability to build on an
unprecedented scale and another technological revolution will result.
"The smallest Earth-crossing asteroid 3554 Amun is a mile-wide (2 km)
lump of iron, nickel, cobalt, platinum, and other metals; it contains
30 times as much metal as Humans have mined throughout history,
although it is only the smallest of dozens of known metallic asteroids
and worth perhaps US$ 20 trillion if mined slowly to meet demand at
2001 market prices."
http://members.nova.org/~sol/station/ast-mine.htm
"In the 2,900 km³ of Eros, there is more aluminium, gold, silver, zinc
and other base and precious metals than have ever been excavated in
history or indeed, could ever be excavated from the upper layers of
the Earth's crust.
http://www.tricitiesnet.com/donsastronomy/mining.html
I think Arthur Clarke wrote about the possibility of a huge diamond
core fragment from Jupiter. I have not been able to find out if that
has been refuted scientifically or not or whether it might be feasible
in another solar system.
Likewise there are theories that some planets with heated cores might
have a massive chunk of uranium.
Building on the previous very useful thread about mining antimatter
(thanks all), I was looking at exotics that could be available in our
solar system and then further out. The next technological step could
be catalyzed by the availability of some exotics such as Monopoles
(which OA deals at length), primordial black holes (or micro-black
holes) or strangelet nuggets. In later OA, these are artificially
created, but in prior times, finding them could jumpstart a tech
revolution, no?
Does anyone recall in Larry Niven's Known Space series, Belters would
prospect for Monopoles?
There was another novel where they prospected for Primordial Black
Holes, but that was before Hawkings figured out that unless they were
more massive than a gigaton, they would have evaporated by now. But a
gigaton or greater Primordial Black Hole in some solar system in the
trillion and change cubic lightyears of space in Orion's Arm would be
a prospecting coup to some lucky frontiersman. If current estimates
are close, there should be 200 such primordial black holes with the OA
Sphere. The nearest one within 600 lightyears.
Macroscopic amounts of Strangelets (a kind of quark), Stragelet
Nuggets would be another odd prospecting find.
In May 2002, a group of researchers at Southern Methodist University
reported the possibility that strangelets may have been responsible
for a seismic event recorded on October 22 and November 24 in 1993, te
authors later retracted their claim. It has been suggested that the
International Monitoring System being set up to verify the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) may be useful as a sort
of "strangelet observatory" using the entire Earth as its detector.
The IMS will be designed to detect anomalous seismic disturbances down
to 1 kiloton of TNT's equivalent energy release or less, and could be
able to track strangelets passing through Earth in real time if
properly exploited.
Unexplained Sets of Seismographic Station Reports and A Set Consistent
with a Quark Nugget Passage
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0205089
Seismic Search for Strange Quark Nuggets
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505584
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), an instrument which is planned
to be mounted on the International Space Station, could detect
strangelets.
Overview of strangelet searches and Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0954-3899/30/1/004
If catalyzed conversion by strangelets is true, then neutron stars
could be plausible. A neutron star is in a sense a giant nucleus (20
km across), held together by gravity, but it is electrically neutral
and so does not electrostatically repel strangelets. If a strangelet
hit a neutron star, it could convert a small region of it, and that
region would grow to consume the entire star, creating a quark star or
more specifically a strange star.
[C. Alcock, E. Farhi and A. Olinto, "Strange stars", Astrophys.
Journal 310, 261 (1986)]
Another technological revolution would come from exploiting exotic
stars. The closest pulsar is only 280 lightyears away. A micro-quasar
is only 600 light-years away. A supernova remnant only 552LY away.
There are at least 20 exotic/degenerate stars within the OA sphere of
influence. I am just unsure what one could do with them. I read about
Neutronium, but I thought it wasn't stable outside of the massive
gravity well of neutron stars.
PSR J0108-1431, 280 light years, Closest Pulsar
LS I +61 303, 600LY, Micro Quasar
Young cooling isolated neutron star that do not have an associated
supernova remnant, binary companion or radio pulsations.
RX J1856.5-3754, 450 light-years, Possible Quark Star
RX J0720.4-3125, Possible Quark Star
RX J1605.3+3249
RX J1308.6+2127
RX J2143.0+0654
RX J0806.4-4123
RX J0420.0-5022
1RXS J214303.7+065419/RBS 1774
Known as the Magnificent Seven, even after an eighth was discovered
because one was disqualified. Relatively close-by (between 600 and
1600 LY), middle-age (about several hundred thousands years) isolated
neutron stars emitting soft x-rays due to cooling. Typical
temperatures are about 50–100 eV. At least six out of the seven show
spin periods in the range ~3–12 s.
Supernova Remnants:
Geminga, 552LY Possible Quark Star
RX J0852.0-4622, 700LY
Vela supernova remnant, 815LY
Veil Nebula, 2000LY (Cygnus Loop or Witch's Broom Nebula)
SN 185, 3000LY
IC 443, 5000LY in the Jellyfish Nebula
Vela X-1, 6200LY
SN 1054, 6300LY (Crab Supernova Remnant)
Crab Pulsar (PSR B0531+21), 6500 LY in the Crab Nebula
PKS 1209-51/52 in SNR G292.0+01.8, 6500LY Possible Quark Star
RX J0822-4300 in Puppis A, 7000LY Possible Quark Star
SN 1006, 7200LY
SN 1572 (Tycho's Supernova, "B Cassiopeiae", B Cas or 3C 10), 7500LY