Scientists have discovered a bizarre similarity between human cells and neutron stars.
How is this possible? After all, neutron stars – celestial bodies with super strong magnetic fields – are made from collapsed star cores.
According to recent research, we share one similarity: the geometry of the matter that makes us.
“Seeing very similar shapes in strikingly different systems suggests the energy of a system may depend on its shape in a simple and universal way,” said the astrophysicist Charles Horowitz.
The pasta-like structures of neutron stars look just like the structures inside biological cells, even though they are vastly different.
While the similarity is cool, and makes us feel connected to the cosmos in a strange way, the differences signify the importance of the discovery, because they hint that two very different things – cells and neutron stars – might be guided by the same geometric rules that we are only just beginning to understand.
Further research is needed to figure out what is going on here, but it is a starting point that could help us understand the structure of matter better, and it is exciting to think where that could lead us.