NEUTRON BULLET
中子子弹
Q. If a bullet with the density of a neutron star were fired from a handgun (ignoring the how) at the Earth's surface, would the Earth be destroyed?
Q．如果一颗密度与中子星相当的子弹在地球表面从手枪中发射出来（忽略怎么发射这个问题），那么地球会被摧毁吗？
#NAME?
——夏洛特•安斯沃思
A. A BULLET WITH THE density of a neutron star would weigh about as much as the Empire State Building.
A．密度与中子星相当的子弹，重量差不多相当于帝国大厦的重量。
Whether we fired it from a gun or not, the bullet would fall straight through the ground, punching through the crust as if the rock were wet tissue paper.
不管你是否是从手枪中射出，这个子弹都会直直地落向地面，击穿地壳，视岩石如湿纸巾。
We'll look at two different questions:
我们会关注这两个的问题：
What would the bullet's passage do to the Earth?
• 子弹落下产生的一长条小洞会对地球有什么影响？
If we kept the bullet here on the surface, what would it do to its surroundings? Could we touch it?
• 如果我们把子弹放在地表，会对周围环境产生什么影响？我们能用手触碰它吗？
First, a little bit of background:
首先，来看一点背景介绍：
What are neutron stars?
什么是中子星？
A neutron star is what's left over after a giant star collapses under its own gravity.Stars exist in a balance. Their massive gravity is always trying to make them collapse inward, but that squeezing sets off several different forces that push them back apart.
中子星是一颗巨大恒星因自身重力坍缩后形成的产物。恒星的存在是一个平衡过程，巨大的引力倾向于使整颗恒星向内坍缩，不过收缩会激发好几种不同的向外推的力。
In the Sun, the thing holding off collapse is heat from nuclear fusion. When a star runs out of fusion fuel, it contracts (in a complicated process involving several explosions) until the collapse is stopped by the quantum laws that keep matter from overlapping with other matter.1
在太阳中心，抵抗坍缩的力来自于核聚变产生的热量。当一颗恒星耗尽核聚变燃料时，它会收缩（这个过程相当复杂，其中还会夹杂好几次爆炸），直到由于受到量子定律的限制，两个物质不能相互重叠而停了下来。1
If the star is heavy enough, it overcomes that quantum pressure and collapses further (with another, more massive explosion) to become a neutron star. If the remnant is even heavier, it becomes a black hole.
如果一颗恒星足够重，它就能克服量子压力进一步坍缩（还会引发又一次更剧烈的爆炸）形成中子星。如果质量再大一些，它就会形成黑洞。