/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14737973
It might not be an element, it could be something weirder like nuggets of strange matter trapped in their centre. In Larry Nivens stories asteroid mining was galvanized by discovering magnetic monopoles out there.

>Compact Composite Objects (CCOs), nuggets of dense Color-Flavor-Locked Superconducting quark matter created before or during the Quantum ChromoDynamics phase transition in the early universe[1, 2, 3], could provide a natural expla-nation for both dark matter and the observed cosmological baryon asymmetry[4, 5, 6], without requiring modifications to fundamental physics. This hypothesis predicts a relic CCO population in the solar system, captured during its formation, and thus both massive strange matter cores in the centers of the Sun and planets, as well as a present-day population of "strange asteroids," bodies with mm-radii quark matter cores and ordinary matter (rock or ice) mantles. Methods based on neutrino radiography and solid-body mechanics are developed to detect such strange matter cores in solar system bodies. The CCO hypothesis is directly supported by the observed population of small Very Fast Rotating (VFR) asteroids (bodies with rotation periods as short as 25 sec); the VFR data are consistent with the existence of strange asteroids with core masses of order 10 10 -10 11 kg. If the VFR asteroids are indeed strange asteroids their CCO cores could be mined using the techniques being developed for asteroid mining. Through a process analogous to Andreev reflection in superconductors[7], even normal matter CCOs could be used as antimatter factories, potentially potentially producing as much as 10 9 kg of antimatter per CCO. While of course speculative, this energy source, if realized, would be suitable for propelling starships to a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and could be found, extracted and exploited in our solar system with existing and near-term developments in technology.

>>14647935