How Can We Save The Sun?
Guide to Space Ep. 267
How Can We Save The Sun?
Airdate: 9/23/2016
Comments (1)
There is a way to save the Sun and in theory it's simple. However, it may not be practical, especially with what we have and don't have today. But we do have 10 billion years to figure out how to do the following: I've spent time doing the math on this, and unless someone wants to see it, I can post it. It's rather lengthy. The bottom line is that we need to replace the hydrogen in the core to keep it at a level that keeps our Sun at its current state. To make it easy, the Sun's mass is about 2x10^30. I've calculated that the core is 10 percent of the Sun's mass, and that the sun only uses .70 percent of the core in actual nuclear fusion. Using E=mc2, the Sun will burn a total of 1.21x10^44 Joules over it's lifetime. We can calculate how much Hydrogen mass is converted to energy by fusion over any period of time. Say if there is a way to replace the spent Hydrogen, say by shooting a rocket every 1,000 years into the Sun's core and release the Hydrogen into it, keeping it at today's current levels, theoretically, the Sun should burn forever, or as long as you maintain the proper levels of Hydrogen. It's a theory of mine, and i really struggled with the math on this one, but my only unknown is if there is a Hydrogen/Helium ratio that I am not considering, which would also have to be maintained. And since the Sun has about 10 billion years left, sometime in our future we will have the ability to reach the Sun's core, and can mine or manufacture using asteroids or comets the quantity of Hydrogen needed. EDIT: As long as the Sun maintains the proper proton-proton chain reaction, the byproduct is He, and that is what causes the Sun to shine (it's luminosity) and it is the energy from the resulting Hydrogen fusion. So the the number of Hydrogen fusions will need to be maintained at today's level to keep the Sun at its current output level.
