Nuclear Pasta

Trivia

 * "Nuclear pasta" is a real astrophysics term for the interior of neutron stars, describing the various intermediate phases between discrete neutron-rich nuclei and bulk neutronium. Under the pressures partway into the neutron star, the neutrons organize themselves into short cylinders ("gnocci phase"), long cylinders ("spaghetti phase"), sheets ("lasagna phase"), etc.
 * Despite its name, Nuclear Pasta is not radioactive.
 * The glowing ball in the item's mesh is mostly shielding, surrounding a microscopic speck of the actual Nuclear Pasta material. A solid ball of Nuclear Pasta that size would weigh trillions of tons (more than a mountain range) and would immediately sink into the ground and tunnel into the planet's core. It would also require trillions of tons of material to make.
 * A Copper Ingot's in-game size is around 0.128 m3, which given that the density of copper is 9,000 kg/m3, means a single ingot weighs ~1,125 kg. Since 1,200 Copper Ingots are required to make a single piece of Nuclear Pasta, the mass of one can be determined to be around 1,350,000 kilograms or 1,350 tons (assuming no waste).
 * Since numbers that large are hard for humans to visualize, 1,350 tons is the just about the weight of 13 blue whales, or a fully-loaded 314-foot long Clemson-class destroyer.
 * With the density of Nuclear Pasta estimated at ~1017 kg/m3, the amount of actual physical nuclear pasta inside of the sphere would thus be ~0.28 mm wide, with the rest of the sphere being shielding.
 * When placed onto the ground or moving on a conveyor, Nuclear Pasta warps the space around it, which is true to real life, as neutron stars have enough gravity to bend light.
 * This effect is not seen on low graphics settings.

History

 * Patch 0.4.0.0: Made officially available, renamed from Dark Matter