this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
114 points (96.0% liked)

Ask Science

8772 readers
505 users here now

Ask a science question, get a science answer.


Community Rules


Rule 1: Be respectful and inclusive.Treat others with respect, and maintain a positive atmosphere.


Rule 2: No harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or trolling.Avoid any form of harassment, hate speech, bigotry, or offensive behavior.


Rule 3: Engage in constructive discussions.Contribute to meaningful and constructive discussions that enhance scientific understanding.


Rule 4: No AI-generated answers.Strictly prohibit the use of AI-generated answers. Providing answers generated by AI systems is not allowed and may result in a ban.


Rule 5: Follow guidelines and moderators' instructions.Adhere to community guidelines and comply with instructions given by moderators.


Rule 6: Use appropriate language and tone.Communicate using suitable language and maintain a professional and respectful tone.


Rule 7: Report violations.Report any violations of the community rules to the moderators for appropriate action.


Rule 8: Foster a continuous learning environment.Encourage a continuous learning environment where members can share knowledge and engage in scientific discussions.


Rule 9: Source required for answers.Provide credible sources for answers. Failure to include a source may result in the removal of the answer to ensure information reliability.


By adhering to these rules, we create a welcoming and informative environment where science-related questions receive accurate and credible answers. Thank you for your cooperation in making the Ask Science community a valuable resource for scientific knowledge.

We retain the discretion to modify the rules as we deem necessary.


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Like fossil fuels come from organic matter that grew because of the sun. Is there any form of energy on that cannot be traced back to the sun in some way?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ran we starlift the Sun to make it last longer?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What does "lift" mean in this context? A web search turns up a Doris Day musical from 1951 which is kind of funny to think about but I'm guessing is not what you mean.

As for the general case of modifying the Sun - or any star - in some way, it's all but certain to need a huge number of resources (or amount of energy, or both), and considering the Sun is on the order of a million times larger than Earth, far more than can be obtained from Earth alone.

I mean, I'd like to be proven wrong and there's some exotic-physics way of causing the helium in the Sun to spontaneously turn back into hydrogen, but if that was easy, you'd expect that we'd see stars do that by themselves occasionally. We don't, which implies there would still need to be some kind of energy input required to get it started.

Without exotic physics, we'd pretty much need on the order of the energy that the star had output from birth up to that point, and if we had that, we'd be better off using that energy in other ways.

We could get all Earth life off Earth and into a self-sustaining, space-faring habitat with a minuscule fraction of the resources. We might be better off aiming for something like that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_lifting

any of several hypothetical processes by which a sufficiently advanced civilization could remove a substantial portion of a star's matter which can then be re-purposed, while possibly optimizing the star's energy output and lifespan at the same time