<p>Sure, if there is no proton decay (nor any other decay process eg sphalerons) then an iron-silicon ball will just be. Gravity will have smoothed any structures on its surface and the heavier atoms will sink towards the centre. making it a perfect sphere.  The planet wouldn't &quot;be 3 kelvin&quot; since it would radiate heat to be at equilibrium and be very close to absolute zero. There would be no atmosphere, as any gas would have either escaped long ago, or become solid (or really &quot;liquid&quot; as at such time scales, any structure of atoms will flow) and part of the surface.</p>
<p>Basically, if you hypothesise that an object has no decay process, then it won't decay and will be around forever.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-19T13:10:50.333Z
But would the iron ionize or no?
MiltonTheMeme
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-19T13:32:26.827Z
No,  of course not.  Ionization requires lots of free energy and very high temperatures.
James K
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-29T14:12:06.060Z
Forever might be too strong a term.  At any finite temperature the Maxwellian distribution would be nonzero at escape velocity.  And, quantum tunneling out of the potential is also possible.  The rate would be extremely small, but forever is a long time.
eshaya
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-19T05:05:58.910Z
2024-05-19T05:05:58.910Z
James K
<p>So imagine there is a very massive planet with 20 times the mass of Earth made of mostly iron and silicon and has 2 times the radius of Earth so has a high escape velocity and this object exists between superclusters where no other objects are there for many millions of light years and is placed in such a way that dark energy pushes away all other objects away apart from the planet's moons and the planet is stationary relative to other objects.</p>
<p>So the planet has a thick atmosphere made of nitrogen. So would it be possible for the entire planet to slowly evaporate. What if the planet is 3 Kelvin? Would such an object exist longer than black dwarfs because compressing a planet into a black hole through slow steps would mean adding energy into compression if the compression to a black hole fails and what if the material is a kind of material which when compressed stores more energy than the gravitational potential energy can give.</p>
<p>So is such an object basically going to stay as one object for the rest of time and since it is away from all other objects it is not going to gain any more mass in significant amounts to even make it more than 1 Jupiter in mass. The planet is also not rotating.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-19T06:23:28.927Z
How does the title of your question connect with the text of your question?
ProfRob
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-05-19T11:20:44.757Z
I’m voting to close this question because it doesn't appear to be anything to do with Astronomy
Rory Alsop
<rogue-planet>
How can planets ionize in the distant future in 10^100 years if proton decay doesn't happen?
MiltonTheMeme
# How can planets ionize in the distant future in 10^100 years if proton decay doesn't happen?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-05-19)

So imagine there is a very massive planet with 20 times the mass of Earth made of mostly iron and silicon and has 2 times the radius of Earth so has a high escape velocity and this object exists between superclusters where no other objects are there for many millions of light years and is placed in such a way that dark energy pushes away all other objects away apart from the planet's moons and the planet is stationary relative to other objects.

So the planet has a thick atmosphere made of nitrogen. So would it be possible for the entire planet to slowly evaporate. What if the planet is 3 Kelvin? Would such an object exist longer than black dwarfs because compressing a planet into a black hole through slow steps would mean adding energy into compression if the compression to a black hole fails and what if the material is a kind of material which when compressed stores more energy than the gravitational potential energy can give.

So is such an object basically going to stay as one object for the rest of time and since it is away from all other objects it is not going to gain any more mass in significant amounts to even make it more than 1 Jupiter in mass. The planet is also not rotating.

**Tags:** rogue-planet
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: How does the title of your question connect with the text of your question?  
> **username_2**: I’m voting to close this question because it doesn't appear to be anything to do with Astronomy  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2024-05-19. Score: 0

Sure, if there is no proton decay (nor any other decay process eg sphalerons) then an iron-silicon ball will just be. Gravity will have smoothed any structures on its surface and the heavier atoms will sink towards the centre. making it a perfect sphere. The planet wouldn't "be 3 kelvin" since it would radiate heat to be at equilibrium and be very close to absolute zero. There would be no atmosphere, as any gas would have either escaped long ago, or become solid (or really "liquid" as at such time scales, any structure of atoms will flow) and part of the surface.

Basically, if you hypothesise that an object has no decay process, then it won't decay and will be around forever.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: But would the iron ionize or no?  
> **username_3**: No,  of course not.  Ionization requires lots of free energy and very high temperatures.  
> **username_4**: Forever might be too strong a term.  At any finite temperature the Maxwellian distribution would be nonzero at escape velocity.  And, quantum tunneling out of the potential is also possible.  The rate would be extremely small, but forever is a long time.  

---

