Bflr
It’s a new chemical reaction but stars have been doing it for eternity?
Interesting.
So far, so good.
"It's possible out there because the magnetic fields on white dwarfs are several orders of magnitude larger than anything that can be generated on Earth."
Ok, out of this world magnetic fields.
"There was speculation that this phenomenon should exist, but no one had the proof, and no one -- until the team I'm on described the process -- had the theoretical structure and the computational tools to address this," he said.
Now we are cooking with gas.
On Earth, even the boldest military experiments generate a peak of maybe 1,000 Tesla.... But on Sirius B, for example, magnetic fields are on the order of 200,000 to 400,000 Tesla, enough to challenge the electronic interactions that dominate the chemistry and material science we know on Earth.
So, at those places, the physics as we know them are "challanged" and likely out the window
Such vast magnetic fields directly alter the way atoms come together, and can alter the chemical reality we know on Earth.
Getting the idea that normal physical reality is out the window.
So how did they do it?
Yes, how? "We computationally modeled the behavior that we theorized, based on universally applicable physical principles," Hoffmann said.
Using applicable physical principlas, where normal physical principles are challanged? OK, whose on first?
Ok, almost forgot, The team's computer model supported their theory. Now it's up to astrophysicists to test the model by old-fashioned observation of the stars.
Hydrogen and helium polymers are right up there with transparent aluminum.
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