We discuss the evolution of the bubbles of quark matter which survive from the first‐order confinement phase transition till the increase of the internal pressure stops their contraction. We also show that at low temperature and high pressure a quark matter composition u d s is preferred to u d d. We finally describe the different colour superconducting phases which may be formed inside neutron stars, and the topological defects that can be generated, where the stable strangelets might be originated and perhaps already detected at high‐altitude observatories. © 2003 American Institute of Physics