system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If I took a spoonful of a neutron star and pulled it away from said star, would the spoonful expand to a larger size? What would the matter look like (metal, glass, gas, liquid)?

I heard a spoonful of matter in a neutron star weighs the same as Mount Everest. Would a spoonful of the stuff expand to that size?
gpt
Neutron stars have a density of around 10^18 kg/m^3, which means that the total mass in a teaspoon is somewhere on the order of 10 billion tons. You'd want to take the scoop from the center of the star as the outside layers are more likely to be heavy elements and stuff.

So lets assume we can teleport a spoonful of neutron star into our cargo hold and steal it. Assuming we don't pressurize our cargo bay or container - the neutron star matter is no longer struggling between gravity and the degeneracy pressure which prevents collapse into a black hole.

The matter immediately explodes upon arrival in the cargo hold. The gas pressure is huge as the matter expands explosively. If the cargo bay holds then you're likely to have created a volume of matter with a density 10 million times that of solid rock. Do not stand in the cargo bay during this phase.

But it gets worse... The degeneracy pressure that was preventing the gravitational collapse of the star also prevents the neutrons from decaying. And when they decay they release energy. So the whole lot is going to explode ... again.

Our teaspoon of neutron star matter decays with the same amount of energy output that our whole Sun puts out over 2-3 seconds (roughly 10^27 J). This is about the equivalent of a trillion megaton nuke.

I strongly advise wearing protective gear when handling neutron star material.