Is Colonizing the Sun Possible in the Distant Future?

[Dremmer]

No, not right now. But when it cools down, billions and billions of years from now?

 

[Pengwuino]

Well done, answering your own question. Though your conclusion is a bit off.

 

[micromass]

Consider the enormous gravity of the sun...

 

[FlexGunship]

No, not right now. But when it cools down, billions and billions of years from now?

I foresee troubles with this. Even the oldest white dwarves known are around 10,000K... so you'd have to wear some of those fancy heat-resistant auto-racing boots. (For reference, diamonds melt around 4000K).

 

[math4math]

I don't think so, at least not in forseeable future. Sun is super duper hot, huge gravity, huge pressur. I think right now the topic is to colonize the Mars (we can think of it...)

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I highly doubt that "we" or any form of "we" will be here in billions and billions of years. I also don't see how you could ever colonise the sun unless you're suggesting floating cities. It would be easier to just build habitats in orbit of the sun.

 

[qraal]

No, not right now. But when it cools down, billions and billions of years from now?

Depends on what you mean by "we" and "colonize". The Sun's end state is as a carbon/oxygen white dwarf, which will take many, many billions of years to cool to biologically compatible temperatures. But we could build a supra-mundane planet at its 1 gee level and colonize that. The result would be a shell planet 5.45 million kilometers across, which would provide a lot of surface area. To keep the Sun's corpse hot enough to sustain life indefinitely on the Shell we'd need a power source from outside the Sun. I suspect dark matter self-annihilation might prove viable if we can figure how to capture enough.

A natural planet could remain in the Sun's white dwarf habitable zone for about 8 billion years - it'd orbit within the Shell!

 

[Astronuc]

No, not right now. But when it cools down, billions and billions of years from now?

Depends on what you mean by "we" and "colonize". The Sun's end state is as a carbon/oxygen white dwarf, which will take many, many billions of years to cool to biologically compatible temperatures. But we could build a supra-mundane planet at its 1 gee level and colonize that. The result would be a shell planet 5.45 million kilometers across, which would provide a lot of surface area. To keep the Sun's corpse hot enough to sustain life indefinitely on the Shell we'd need a power source from outside the Sun. I suspect dark matter self-annihilation might prove viable if we can figure how to capture enough.

A natural planet could remain in the Sun's white dwarf habitable zone for about 8 billion years - it'd orbit within the Shell!

Well before the sun shrinks to a white dwarf, it is supposed to expand to a red giant, which is supposed to engulf the inner solar system, including Earth and out to the orbit of Mars.

Actually a 'white' dwarf will be hotter than the sun.

 

[qraal]

Well before the sun shrinks to a white dwarf, it is supposed to expand to a red giant, which is supposed to engulf the inner solar system, including Earth and out to the orbit of Mars.

Actually a 'white' dwarf will be hotter than the sun.

Hi Astronuc

Well of course it's going to go red giant, but that's a temporary blip compared to the cool down time of a white dwarf. As for "hotter than the Sun", that is a brief era prior to the much more leisurely chill down period when it's as hot as the Sun. Eric Agol's paper on white dwarf habitable zones lays out the times involved...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.2791"

...even longer if it's a pure helium WD rather than a C/O WD, though helium WDs only happen if the star blows off too much mass before it hits the Helium Main Sequence.

 

[brocks]

I'm no expert, but I can see you'd have to do it at night.

 

[Drakkith]

I'm no expert, but I can see you'd have to do it at night.

Zing!

 

[qraal]

I'm no expert, but I can see you'd have to do it at night.

Of course. One can do it during the day, but the sunblock needed...

 

[Drakkith]

Of course. One can do it during the day, but the sunblock needed...

So...SPF 30 or 10^20? The 1st one is waaay cheaper...

 

[CosmicEye]

Nope, doubt it. It would take many billions of years. If the WD were to cool into a super dense planet, the gravity would kill us. Not only that but I think the density itself would keep the star too hot. It would aslo be really with a horrific rotational period. And by that time we will surely be on another planet in an attempt to escape from the initial Red Giant stage.

Lets say it did cool to be habitable or we could atleast land on it despite eveything. It might harbor some very exotic minerals. I wonder would there be giant diamonds beneath the crust? Or, a super mineral that held enough energy to power the US for 100 years? Also if you were to take a sample, would it expand from the lack of gravity like if you were to take a balloon from the bottom of the sea to the surface?

 

[AndromedaRXJ]

No, because it's theorized that humans will evolve into vampires.

Seriously, though, I doubt it. I don't see why we'd want to either. I can't picture a situation where we'd want or have to colonize a star over anything else. It seems absolutely unnecessary if it's even possible.

 

[CosmicEye]

Agreed. Harvesting the Sun's energy is another probable question though

 

[miniradman]

...the bottom line is that it would be a waste of ;time, money, lives and by that time we probably would have already colonized and polute some other planet we might call home ;)