Is the Sun invisible at relativistic speeds?

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The discussion centers on whether the Sun becomes invisible when approaching it at relativistic speeds. It is established that as an observer moves towards the Sun, the observed spectrum is blue-shifted, increasing the effective temperature and brightness, while moving away results in red-shifting and dimming. The Sun will never become truly invisible; instead, it can appear as a dark sphere depending on the observer's speed. The relativistic effects, including frequency shifts and intensification, complicate the perception of brightness but do not lead to complete invisibility. Ultimately, the Sun can appear darker but will always emit some detectable radiation.
  • #31
That was my first thought as well, but the calculations done in http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.0164 and my own estimate disagree with that first thought, at least for a perfect blackbody.
 
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  • #32
mfb said:
That was my first thought as well, but the calculations done in http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.0164 and my own estimate disagree with that first thought, at least for a perfect blackbody.
I had the reference available, but I made the same mistake as Kip Thorne; checking the relevant resources there is agreement that relative speed v will turn the black body radiation u(ω,T) of an emitter (e.g. the sun) at rest into black body radiation u(ω,T') where T' = T'(v). Depending on the direction (sign) of v we have T'(v) > T or T'(v) < T.
For T' > T the power spectrum u(ω,T') > u(ω,T) for all frequencies ω.
For T' < T the power spectrum u(ω,T') < u(ω,T) for all frequencies ω.
Therefore when the observer approaches the emitter (sun) the emitter will look brighter for every frequency ω.
 
  • #33
tom.stoer said:
but I made the same mistake as Kip Thorne;

Huh? Are you saying Kip is WRONG!?
 
  • #34
tionis said:
Are you saying Kip is WRONG!?
Yes, b/c the second part of
tionis said:
The sun emits infrared radiation, which will get shifted into the visible part of the spectrum ... However, these emissions are weaker than the sun's optical emissions, so the sun will get dimmer ...
is wrong.

For T' > T we have u(ω,T') > u(ω,T) for every single ω.
 
  • #35
tom.stoer said:
Lala

Please, be serious for a minute. Is Kip wrong?
 
  • #36
Too hasty, I was still editing my post; now it's completed
 
  • #37
Thanks, Tom. I will let him know lol.
 
  • #38
tionis said:
Thanks, Tom. I will let him know lol.
seriously, we all agree - after some discussions - that the sun looks brighter; "lol" is not appropriate; if you do believe in Kip Thorne only, then there is no reason to start this thread and let us discuss about it
 
  • #39
tom.stoer said:
seriously, we all agree - after some discussions - that the sun looks brighter; "lol" is not appropriate; if you do believe in Kip Thorne only, then there is no reason to start this thread and let us discuss about it

lol What are you on about?
 
  • #40
tionis said:
lol What are you on about?
about taking this discussion and the time we invest seriously
 
  • #41
tom.stoer said:
about taking this discussion and the time we invest seriously

lol But I do. Seriously.
 
  • #42
I think there may be some confusion here, because some people are answering the question for a hypothetical black body source, and other people are answering it for the actual Sun, which does not emit a perfect black body spectrum. In fact, the Sun has several absorption bands, i.e., wavelengths at which it emits virtually zero radiation. So it deviates a lot from a smooth black body spectrum. If we set our speed of approach such that one of these absorption bands is aligned with the visible spectrum, the radiation in the visible spectrum would go down. But then it would go back up again as we increase our speed still further - at least until reaching the next absorption band. At some point, beyond radio waves, the Sun's spectrum may drop to virtually zero - I don't know, but I wouldn't assume it adhered to the theoretical black body spectrum out to infinitely long wavelengths. A perfect black body is an idealization that doesn't actually exist.
 
  • #43
Samshorn said:
I think there may be some confusion here, because ... other people are answering it for the actual Sun, which does not emit a perfect black body spectrum.
Nobody did that; we were all talking about a perfect black body
 
  • #44
Wait a minute, I'm talking about the real Sun here.
 
  • #45
But you never mentioned red-shift fine-tuning shifting absorption bands exactly to the visible spectrum
 
  • #46
tom.stoer said:
But you never mentioned red-shift fine-tuning shifting absorption bands exactly to the visible spectrum

How am I suppose to know all that? You guys are the physicists here. I merely posted a question based on some online article I read...
 
  • #47
So let's talk about the perfect black body spectrum
 
  • #48
tom.stoer said:
So let's talk about the perfect black body spectrum

I don't know what that is.
 
  • #49
tom.stoer said:
Nobody did that; we were all talking about a perfect black body

tionis said:
Wait a minute, I'm talking about the real Sun here.

This is the confusion I was talking about. Also, I suspect Kip Thorne hadn't clearly thought about the power spectrum - he didn't mention a black body spectrum - so it's unclear whether he was thinking of some actual cutoff limit for the real Sun's wavelengths, or if he assumed a blackbody spectrum (tacitly) and just overlooked the intensity amplification effect of approaching speed (as Tom did originally), which he also didn't mention.

tom.stoer said:
But you never mentioned red-shift fine-tuning shifting absorption bands exactly to the visible spectrum

It isn't just absorption bands. The real Sun may (for all you know) have a cutoff wavelength, beyond which it emits essentially no radiation, and no longer conforms at all to the theoretical blackbody spectrum.

tionis said:
How am I suppose to know all that? You guys are the physicists here. I merely posted a question based on some online article I read...

What article? That might help clear up the confusion.
 
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  • #50
Samshorn said:
This is the confusion I was talking about. Also, I suspect Kip Thorne hadn't clearly thought about the power spectrum - he didn't mention a black body spectrum - so it's unclear whether he was thinking of some actual cutoff limit for the real Sun's wavelengths, or if he assumed a blackbody spectrum (tacitly) and just overlooked the intensity amplification effect of approaching speed (as Tom did originally), which he also didn't mention.

Samshorn, help me out please. Who's right??
 
  • #52
tom.stoer said:
I think we should try to be more exact.

There is a Doppler shift ω → ω' = βω;
There is a trf. of Ω → Ω' = β-2Ω;

I'm not sure what you mean. What' trf. an abbreviation for, and what does the variable Ω represent?

Since we're trying to be exact, the relativistic doppler shift is

z =\sqrt{\frac{1+\beta}{1-\beta}} = \frac{1+\beta}{\sqrt{1-\beta^2}} = (1+\beta)\gamma

where ##\beta = v/c##

The frequency and wavelength of a pulse of light is shifted by a factor of z. As a consequence, the length of a light pulse is shifted by a factor of 1/z.

The energy density (usually denoted ##T^{00}## in GR) scales as z^2, a factor of z comes from the shift in frequency (giving each individual photon more energy) and another factor of z comes from an increased photon arrival rate. I worked out the details of the transformation of the stress-energy tensor T in the previous thread.

Wikki gives, for a black body

<br /> I = \left( \frac{2\,h\,\nu^3}{c^2}\right) \left(\frac{1}{e^{\frac{h\,\nu}{k\,T}}-1} \right)<br />

where I is the energy/unit time, or the power. Given the energy /unit volume ##\rho##, I would be equal to ##\rho## * (volume) / (time) == ##\rho## * (area) * (length)/(time) = ##\rho## * (area) * c. So I and ##\rho## are proportional , I = ##\rho A c##

Neither A or c should be affected by the lorentz transform, so I should transform in the same manner as ##\rho##.

Thus we can say that for a black body (I'm not sure how good an approxiation the sun is of one)

<br /> I = (1+\beta)^2 \gamma^2 \left( \frac{2\,h\,\nu_0^3}{c^2}\right) \left(\frac{1}{e^{\frac{h\,\nu_0}{k\,T}}-1} \right)<br />

where ##\nu_0## is the frequency of emission.

Substituting ##\nu_0 = \frac{\nu}{\gamma \, \left(1+\beta\right)}## where ##\nu## is the frequency of reception should give the received intensity law as a function of received frequency, if I haven't made any errors.

This gives a black-body like spectrum, I think - but multiplied by a diferent scale factor.
 
  • #53
Hmm, either a bunch of replies snuck in, or I didn't update before I responded - a lot of this has been covered already.

It looks to me, though, like the relativistic emissions should turn out to be

(1/z) * black_body, with Teff = zT

The increasing Teff makes it brighter, the factor of 1/z makes it dimmer.
 
  • #54
Pervect, you mean Kip is right after all?
 
  • #55
Hmmm- well, doing a series expansion, I'm currently disagreeing with Kip :-(. A series expansion indicates that at the limit as ##\nu## goes to zero, the blackbody radiation goes up quadratically, and the factor that fights it, 1/z, is only linear.
 
  • #56
I'd suggest getting back to professor Thorne and seeing if he agrees with our analysis, or if we've made some silly blunder, if that's feasible.

(add) It'd be helpful to provide more details than to just say "they say you're wrong". SOme of the math, or a link to the thread, or something.
 
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  • #57
I think you miss the trf. of dΩ
 
  • #58
I"m guessing that trf is "Lorentz transform" and dΩ is solid angle? I didn't use that approach at all, I just used the energy density per unit volume, assuming a plane wave (which should be a good approximation far away from the sun).

I'll have to read the cited paper to see how to handle the non-plane wave case - we may be talking about different things.

(add)
I'm basically using the flux, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jansky, to determine the brightness of a point source. This is just energy / meter^2 (where we constrain the energy to be in the visual band).

As I mentioned, the area, A, of the detector isn't affected by the Lorentz transform if you're moving directly towards the source.

This approach gives the "apparent mangnitude" of a star when you take an apporpriate logaraithm of it.
 
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  • #59
I agree, of a point source you don't expect a dΩ contribution; however the classical Statement is that the spectral density for a black body is u(ω,T) is transformed into another black body u(ω,T') with a velocity-dependent temperature T'(v); this requires to use the solid angle in combination with the spectral density to cancel the per-factors between Ω and u.

Refer to #4, #20 and #22
 
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  • #60
pervect said:
Hmmm- well, doing a series expansion, I'm currently disagreeing with Kip :-(. A series expansion indicates that at the limit as ##\nu## goes to zero, the blackbody radiation goes up quadratically, and the factor that fights it, 1/z, is only linear.

As our speed toward the Sun increases, the visible light comes from the lower frequency range of the Sun's spectrum (Doppler shifted up to the visible frequency range). Remember that the energy of a pulse of light under a Lorentz transformation increases in exactly the same ratio as the frequency. So, for example, when our speed toward the Sun doubles the frequencies (i.e., when we are seeing light emitted by the Sun at half the visible frequencies), it will also be doubling the energies. However, at half the frequency, the spectral energy is extremely low, so doubling it doesn't make it very big. The blackbody spectrum eventually drops exponentially, and this drop prevails over the Doppler energy increase. Remember that as the temperature of a blackbody increases (as we approach the Sun at higher and higher speed), the peak frequency of the spectrum increases, and it will eventually pass out of the visible range. So instead of seeing the light, we'll just be getting fried with x-rays, etc.

By the way, this is more or less consistent with what is described in the FAQ article cited by the OP. That article talks about moving at high speed toward the Orion belt, and how the appearance of two of the stars would change: "The red Betelgeuse gets its large infrared spectral energy distribution shifted into the visible region, while the blue Rigel gets its spectral energy distribution shifted out to UV and x-ray wavelengths until it fades away." Of course, if we keep increasing the speed, Betelgeuse will fade away too, i.e., it will be shifted up into the x-ray region, not visible to the human eye. I think that article uses some confusing words, though, when it earlier says regarding the Doppler effect: "This results in higher flux intensity, and causes stars in front to get brighter, and from rear to get fainter." The words brighter and fainter can be misleading, because they tend to connote visibility, but really what they mean there is that the overall energy flux increases. This increase causes it to pass out of the visible range, so it gets fainter (in the visible sense) as it gets brighter (in the total energy sense).
 
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