Rebirth of the Super Battleship

Chapter 453: Birth of a Black Hole!

The internal compartments constructed by this unknown silicon-based civilization inside this neutron star were not large, but one must remember that the entire neutron star had a diameter of only twenty kilometers.

Those strange walls vanished, and neutron star matter collapsed in an instant. The collapse proceeded at a speed extremely close to the speed of light. The extremely large mass combined with the extremely rapid speed endowed it with extremely great kinetic energy. After impact came rebound.

This was a mechanism similar to a supernova explosion. A supernova occurs when the stellar core suddenly loses support, the outer stellar matter collapses, impacts, rebounds, and ultimately blasts the entire star apart. Now this scene replayed upon this neutron star.

The force rebounding from the impact spread throughout the entire neutron star, but unfortunately the strength of this rebound was insufficient to grant the neutron star’s matter an initial velocity great enough to escape the neutron star’s gravitational field. Thus the neutron star was not blasted to pieces but instead fell into instability.

Earth-shaking changes were occurring inside the neutron star, manifested externally as a further increase in the intensity of radiation across various bands.

Back on Earth, there was once an interesting study that asked, if one ignores the short lifespan of a micro black hole, that is, assuming a micro black hole can exist long enough, what pattern would it follow to devour the Earth entirely when it encounters Earth?

The result of the study was that when the black hole encounters Earth, since in terms of overall gravity Earth is stronger than the black hole, the black hole would first orbit Earth, then fall into Earth and ultimately settle at Earth’s core. Due to inertia, it would not remain stationary at the center but would continually move, and in the course of its motion continuously consume Earth’s matter, like a mouse that has burrowed into a block of cheese, gnawing it away from the inside.

Of course, in reality one must also consider planetary collapse and various radiation issues, but roughly speaking that is the idea. Now, in the encounter between this neutron star and the white dwarf, the same scene was reenacted.

The white dwarf was relatively large in volume, about the size of Earth, whereas the neutron star’s volume was tiny. Compared with the white dwarf, it was like half a sesame seed against a great millstone. The neutron star’s density was much higher than that of the white dwarf, so at the instant of encounter it bored directly into the white dwarf, leaving a gigantic tunnel in the white dwarf.

This tunnel led straight from the white dwarf’s surface to its core. The matter that had originally occupied this tunnel had at that moment been consumed by the neutron star and transformed from white dwarf matter into neutron star matter. The consequence of increased density was reduced volume, hence the appearance of this tunnel.In the next moment, under the white dwarf’s own gravity, the tunnel rapidly vanished, sealing off the neutron star’s retreat. But the neutron star’s devouring would not stop. In the very center of the white dwarf, it glutted itself on the white dwarf’s matter, converting the white dwarf’s mass into its own, like a ferocious mouse at the heart of a vast block of cheese, constantly tearing at its mass from within.

This was a very violent collision process. At the instant when the neutron star encountered the white dwarf’s matter, the enormous energy released by the collision completely altered the material structure here. In those few instants, a series of indescribably complex transformations occurred. A portion of the matter was altered directly at the level of atomic nuclei and became various metallic elements. Among them were gold, silver, platinum, radium, uranium, and mercury. In that instant, every element on the periodic table was produced, whether the light elements arranged before iron or the heavy elements arranged after iron.

The fusion mechanism inside stars can only fuse iron and the elements before iron. After fusing to iron, the star’s end has arrived, and what awaits it is a supernova. A supernova can be regarded as death, and it can also be regarded as creation, because only in a supernova can heavy elements beyond iron be produced. It is precisely for this reason that iron and the elements before iron are relatively abundant in the universe.

This is very clearly reflected on Earth as well. Why is it that the farther back an element is on the periodic table, the scarcer its reserves are? Why are the reserves of silver so much less than those of iron, yet so much greater than those of gold?

The reason is simple, because silver is heavier than iron and lighter than gold. In the universe, producing iron is very easy, so there is a lot of iron. Producing gold and silver is comparatively difficult, so they are scarce.

An intense event like a collision between a neutron star and a white dwarf undoubtedly meets the conditions for producing heavy elements. Therefore, in the instant of collision, all elements were produced, those on the periodic table and those not on it, all were produced. Because of the enormous energy brought by the collision, they acquired sufficient initial velocity to escape this enormous gravitational field. Thus they splashed out from the point of impact, flew into the universe, and joined the slow evolution of the cosmos. Perhaps some of the gold produced in this collision will end up in the hand of a being from a primitive civilization to barter for some food it needs, while some of the uranium produced in this impact will be taken by certain scientists of that primitive civilization to make atomic bombs.

In this collision, some ultraheavy elements were also produced. These ultraheavy elements cannot exist stably, so in a very short time after being flung out they lost some of the protons or neutrons that made up their nuclei and ultimately decayed into other elements.

Leaving these two stellar bodies together with the ejected matter was extremely intense radiation, the most terrifying catastrophe in the universe, a gamma-ray burst.

Besides these, there was an extremely intense outburst in the visible band. In that instant, the two stellar bodies released light even stronger than the explosion of the primary star of the Molian Civilization’s capital star system. Under the radiation pressure of this light, Xiao Yu saw a hair-raising scene.

The planet he was using as a shield was actually pushed by the radiation pressure directly out of its current orbit and began to move backward. Fortunately Xiao Yu reacted quickly enough and immediately maneuvered his fleet to move together with the planet, avoiding a direct collision.

Xiao Yu once again witnessed the overwhelming power of a universe-level catastrophe. Without this planet as a shield, he would already be dead, and even a Four-Dimensional Shield could not have withstood such a violent energy outburst.

Although the energy of the gamma-ray burst was immense, it could only last a very short time. Essentially it persisted only at the moment the collision had just occurred, for about three seconds, then continued racing into the void at the speed of light. Over the long journey it would gradually lose energy, but it is certain that even at distances of several billion light-years from here, once the energy of this gamma-ray burst arrives it can still be clearly observed.

The energy of the gamma-ray burst was emitted mainly along the two magnetic poles of the neutron star, where it was strongest. If in the direction exactly aligned with these poles there happened to be a planet with life, then even with a distance of over a thousand light-years, those living beings would be killed without exception. In non-polar directions the gamma-ray burst’s energy is smaller, but even so it is sufficient within a range of dozens of light-years to kill any unprotected life.

Xiao Yu naturally avoided the polar directions, but even so, the planet he was using as a shield suffered extremely severe damage. Xiao Yu could not precisely describe the specific mechanisms of this damage, because there were still many aspects of such an extreme event as a collision between a white dwarf and a neutron star that he did not yet understand. He only knew that the planet before him was undergoing a baptism by violent energy. On this world earthquakes were frequent, magma surged everywhere, and intense orogeny had almost completely reshaped the planet’s terrain.

The collision process had still not ended. The neutron star had already entered the interior of the white dwarf and was consuming the white dwarf’s matter from within. Lacking sufficient material support, the overall structure of the white dwarf was collapsing and its volume was shrinking rapidly, like a fluffy loaf of bread being savagely squeezed by a giant hand.

The difference was that a loaf is squeezed by an external force, whereas the force shrinking the white dwarf’s volume came from within. The collapse of matter meant it would fall onto the neutron star, which meant impacts would continue to occur and intense energy would be released.

This energy was extremely strong, but most of it was confined within the stellar body and did not fully erupt outward. Even so, the small portion that leaked out was enough to change the color of heaven and earth.

Xiao Yu knew that something truly terrifying was happening inside the white dwarf. He had already anticipated the outcome of this matter. He knew that the final creation should already have formed at this moment. If his estimate was not wrong, the neutron star should already have disappeared by now.

In its place should be a black hole. A black hole sufficient to devour all things, once entered never to exit, the most terrifying object in the universe, was at this moment hidden inside the white dwarf and rapidly increasing its mass.