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Suppose we mined the Sun of some of its mass. How much mass would we have to remove from the Sun to make it dim enough to place Venus within the habitable zone? And what else can we do with the mass that we lifted from the Sun> Could we dump it on Jupiter, maybe turn it into a red dwarf. Would that be advisable?
I found a wikipedia entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80 … y_relation
L/Lsun = (M/Msun)^4 for masses between 0.43 to 2 solar masses.
Venus is 0.72 AU from the Sun. Venus receives 1.93 times as much might as the Earth, to reduce the light to 1.00 times as much as Earth, we'd have to cut the Sun's luminosity to 0.52 of its current value, such that Venus would then receive 1.00 of the light Earth now receives and the Earth would then receives 0.52 of what it receives now
Plugging in 0.52 for L/Lsun we get:
0.52 = (M/Msun)^4
The fourth root of 0.52 is 0.84 Solar masses, so we'd have to remove 16% of the Sun's mass to make it that dim.
16% of the Sun's mass is 53,333.28 Earth masses, by comparison Jupiter only has 318 Earth masses, which give the mass removed the equivalent of 164 Jupiter masses, we could make 2 red dwarfs out of that the size of Proxima Centauri.
Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2014-01-18 14:33:02)
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Not practical. But even if you could, messing with the Sun in any way would screw up the Earth. Not a good idea.
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Not practical. But even if you could, messing with the Sun in any way would screw up the Earth. Not a good idea.
Yeah, I know its not practical, probably easier to move the planets, but an interesting thought experiment just the same. See below:
We could make two red dwarfs out of the matter we'd pull out of the Sun to dim it. Place one red dwarf in Earth's orbit, and have the Earth orbit it at just thr right distance to make up for the short fall in light received from the Sun, in this case it would be 0.48 of the Sun's current luminoscity, another red dwarf could be placed in Mars' orbit, and have the red planet orbit closer so that the combined luminosity of both the red dwarf and the Sun would make it habitable.
Or perhaps one larger star, Have both Earth and Mars orbit it. Mars would be further out, as it would have a thicker atmosphere than Earth, it could be further out from the satellite star than Earth, both planets would combine the light from both stars for habitability. Maybe this arrangement already exists somewhere out in the galaxy.
Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2014-01-18 15:38:59)
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If you're going to star lift, why not direct that hydrogen to Venus and turn it's atmosphere to oceans?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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It would only take an asteroid's mass of hydrogen to make an ocean for Venus.
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And? If you can starlift, that is the easiest way to get it by far, rather than needing a massive shipping infrastructure...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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If you can do all that, then just give Venus a planetary magnetic field. It will build a magnetosphere, protect the planet from solar wind. Solar wind breaks down water in the upper atmosphere, and accelerates free hydrogen into space. The magnetosphere will prevent most of that, and what little hydrogen is lost will be re-captured and returned at the poles. Aurora, just like Earth. Furthermore, it could capture solar wind and deliver hydrogen as aurora. So the magnetic field would not only protect existing water, it would create water.
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If you can do all that, then just give Venus a planetary magnetic field. It will build a magnetosphere, protect the planet from solar wind. Solar wind breaks down water in the upper atmosphere, and accelerates free hydrogen into space. The magnetosphere will prevent most of that, and what little hydrogen is lost will be re-captured and returned at the poles. Aurora, just like Earth. Furthermore, it could capture solar wind and deliver hydrogen as aurora. So the magnetic field would not only protect existing water, it would create water.
it would also be helpful if one can induce solar flares to occur in the direction of Venus and use the artificial magnetic field to funnel all that ionized hydrogen towards Venus' atmosphere so it can be converted to water. That's basically how you would star lift, you harness solar energy to create a magnetic field that induces a solar flare. If you can control Solar flares and get them to flare only in certain directions and capture the gases that are ejected, that would be star lifting.
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