Engineered Sun Explosion

[Nyrath]

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/01/sun-explosion.html

 

A long read, but scary

[Kristopher]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

I'm not sure how seriously I take it. It sounds scarey, but it also sounds like it's trying too hard to be scarey.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Transform, Xd6, Cumulative (LOTS!!): Star to Supernova. Oh, and Megascale range on the order of a few light-years, unless you want to die...

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Far-fetched as it may be, this is great stuff for apocalyptic SF stories. Reminds me of Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross.

 

This makes me wonder about the use of relativistic weapons (as opposed to thermonuclear devices) against a system's primary star. If it's possible to start a 'runaway' fusion reaction in the atmosphere of a star, would a relativistic impact create enough heat/pressure to initiate a reaction like that? The massive bombardment depicted in Pellegrino & Zebrowski's The Killing Star would be wholly unnecessary if a single R-bomb could be used to detonate the Sun!

 

I'll have to look into this. The future history of my campaign might be due for a revision.

 

 

Don't look at me,

Xavier Onassiss

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Great usable material. I liked Iron Cross a lot as well, still, I think it's hard to beat Doc Smith, for weapons of calamity.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

I must admit: my reaction is that the entire development in the linked manuscripts is "Not even wrong".

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Heh....I need to print that up on a T-Shirt.

 

~Rex

[Kristopher]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

I must admit: my reaction is that the entire development in the linked manuscripts is "Not even wrong".

 

And so it doesn't surprise me that it traces back to atranshumanist.

 

This topic may seem totally out of left field, but there are two papers I would urge all concerned to read. The formidable Alexei Valerievich Turchin, of the Russian Transhumanist movement, has written of the dangers of thermonuclear detonation of the deuterium rich strata of other Solar System bodies--

 

[Cancer]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

That's part of the problem. The Sun has no deuterium rich layers, because deuterium is so fragile. (Deuterium fusion VERY early on in the forming sun is taken for granted, and it causes a "hiccup" in the star formation process.) In fact, it's only the outermost portions of the Sun where any deuterium has survived at all; elsewhere, it gets fused rapidly as quickly as it's made, so there isn't any around.

 

And the possibility of deuterium fusion in the interior of Jupiter has been looked at. If there is/was a mechanism that would enrich deuterium by a factor of 100, from about 1 part in 10^5 to 1 part in 10^3 or so of the hydrogen in a particular part of the planetary interior, then there would have been a while in the Jovian interior when sustained small-scale deuterium fusion happened. But now it's too cold, and the core of Jupiter has gone degenerate.

 

Exposing those manuscripts to competent referees would get them simply shredded. I mean, for that first one, the first 8 pages should be replaced by "See Clayton (1968) for an introduction to undergraduate-level solar interior physics," referring to a classical textbook.

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

So in short, the actual issue is moot?

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Well, if it was that easy to make stars and planets go bang, we'd see it happen a lot more.

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Andromeda's Nova Bombs return, heh.

 

~Rex

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

I must admit: my reaction is that the entire development in the linked manuscripts is "Not even wrong".

 

This comes as a considerable relief to hear. (I've been known to understate, just a little....) On the other hand, another potentially very cool SF idea gets kiboshed.

 

 

Don't look at me,

Xavier Onassiss

[Kristopher]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

And the possibility of deuterium fusion in the interior of Jupiter has been looked at. If there is/was a mechanism that would enrich deuterium by a factor of 100' date=' from about 1 part in 10^5 to 1 part in 10^3 or so of the hydrogen in a particular part of the planetary interior, then there would have been a while in the Jovian interior when sustained small-scale deuterium fusion happened. But now it's too cold, and the core of Jupiter has gone degenerate.[/quote']

 

As in "neutron star"?

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Neutron Stars cheat.....but then....very valid point. Also, starting to show up again in comics and sci fi a lot as weapons material.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Yeah, neutron stars are held up by degenerate neutron pressure. White dwarfs are held up by degenerate electron pressure. The upper mass range of jovian planets have a partially degenerate core. The relevant wikipedia article is here, but I haven't read it yet to check how good it is.

[RexMundi]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Yeah JSA All Stars I think (could have the titles mixed up I picked up like, 6 months of comics at once) had someone Shoot Power Girl, with a Gun, that splattered her with fist size Chunks of neutron Star material. That for some reason, sets the Sci Fi nerd in me, on fire and sends me screaming about the room, because I seem to recall from somewhere or someone (Jerry Pournelle maybe?), that all it would take to destroy the earth is drop a teaspoon of Neutron Star material on it.

 

Seems there could be some handwavium there.

 

~Rex

[Cancer]

Re: Engineered Sun Explosion

 

Well ... small amounts of degenerate matter become NOT degenerate quickly. It takes considerable gravity to smash particles so close together that phase space starts filling up.