Can Saturn turn into a star?
- Thread starter Duddy
- Start date
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 19
- 81
Yes, they're actually planning on doing this.
They also plan to do the same thing to Earth. "The Core" was just a ploy to lull the public into a false sense of security. They are going to detonate a quantum hypernuclear bombonoid in the center, and kill everyone.
Anyway.
No, if Cassini goes into Saturn's atmosphere, nothing will happen. If memory serves, Saturn has a lot of helium in it, and it's just not massive enough to start a fusion reaction.
Galileo plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere, and it's mostly hydrogen (again, if memory serves me correctly), plus it's much more massive than Saturn. Again, it's like spitting into the ocean and expecting something to happen.
People who know NOOOOTTTTHING!!! about science get all, "OMG Plutoniums!!!! Saturn has hydrogen and it's big! Nuclear things happen! It'll become a star!"
No. Stars don't get "ignited" by some radioactive element or compound starting them up. Mass builds up, increasing pressure in the core. This increases temperatures, which makes nuclear fusion easier to achieve. In order for a star to be stable though, it needs to have sufficient mass to keep the immense energy generated by fusion to keep from blowing the new "star" apart in a giant puff of plasma. It's an equilibrium between gravity and the star's own energy.
Saturn isn't massive enough to do this - it can't generate sufficient heat or pressure inside its core to start a fusion reaction. A few kilograms of plutonium isn't going to do a damn thing to start a fusion reaction, either. You could even detonate a fusion bomb in Saturn's core, and you might not even see the ripple by the time it got to the surface. The fusion bomb isn't going to start a full-scale nuclear reaction in Saturn's own atmosphere or core.
Nothing to worry about. We can't spawn new stars, at least not until we have the technology to funnel trillions upon trillions of cubic kilometers of hydrogen into one spot in space, and do so rapidly enough such that its own gravity will hold it together before it dissipates.
You mentioned Google results, so I went looking. I confirmed my suspicions, that the people coming up with these theories of idiocy are in fact, you guessed it: idiots.
From here:
"1997- Cassini is launched for Saturn with a tremendous load of Pu-238 dioxide (72 lbs!), many times the amount actually needed to run the craft?s instruments."
No freaking kidding. When it's launched, yeah, it's going to have a high output. But guess what, that plutonium decays. By the time it gets to Saturn, the output is already going to be lower than at launch.
Let's say that it needs 100W to run, and at launch, the RTG puts out 100W. By the time it gets to Saturn, 7 years later, its output will decline. If I understand the equation properly, after that time, and given plutonium's decay rate, the RTG would put out only 94.6W. Oops, can't run the spaceship anymore. Damn, that was an expensive mistake. That, and they'd like to have the chance of an extended mission available, for something like what we have with the Voyager probes. Now, Cassini is in orbit around a planet, with various interesting moons - staying in a scientifically useful orbit consumes fuel for the thrusters, so this will likely be the limiting factor on its usable lifespan. It also lacks a scan platform, so the entire spacecraft must swivel in order to target and track objects for scans. This eliminated the expense and complexity of a scan platform on what was already the largest and most complex probe ever sent to another planet, but it came at the cost of increased thruster usage.
Given that there's been water (frozen, with perhaps an sub-surface liquid reservoir) on the moon Enceladus, they won't want to risk crashing Cassini into it, contaminating it. This is why they sent Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere. It was not only running low on fuel, but its electronics were degrading due to the intense radiation at Jupiter. They didn't want to risk having it hit, and contaminate, Europa, a moon covered in a crust of water ice, possibly with an immense liquid water ocean beneath.
Concerning this "contamination" - spacecraft are sterilized, but there are limits to this, and specifications as to just how sterile something can be. Really making sure that every last microbe was dead would also likely nuke the electronics, and would make it really damned expensive. So there might be a few unwanted stowaways on the probes we send out.
But anyway, yes, they send these things out with more plutonium than is needed. New Horizons - another example. It's got a 9 year trip to get out to Pluto. It'd kind of suck to have it get there and not have enough power to get the job done. Then it's going to continue to fly through the Kuiper Belt, possibly making close flybys of other interesting objects. Again, if it doesn't have enough plutonium on board, it won't get a hell of a lot done.
I'm sure that if you're setting out on a 100 mile drive, and your car gets 30mpg, you're not going to put exactly 3 gallons and 5.333 ounces of gas in the tank.
Summary: People making up this BS about turning Saturn into a star weren't paying enough attention during middle school science, high school science, or any science class.
They also plan to do the same thing to Earth. "The Core" was just a ploy to lull the public into a false sense of security. They are going to detonate a quantum hypernuclear bombonoid in the center, and kill everyone.
Anyway.
No, if Cassini goes into Saturn's atmosphere, nothing will happen. If memory serves, Saturn has a lot of helium in it, and it's just not massive enough to start a fusion reaction.Galileo plunged into Jupiter's atmosphere, and it's mostly hydrogen (again, if memory serves me correctly), plus it's much more massive than Saturn. Again, it's like spitting into the ocean and expecting something to happen.
People who know NOOOOTTTTHING!!! about science get all, "OMG Plutoniums!!!! Saturn has hydrogen and it's big! Nuclear things happen! It'll become a star!"
No. Stars don't get "ignited" by some radioactive element or compound starting them up. Mass builds up, increasing pressure in the core. This increases temperatures, which makes nuclear fusion easier to achieve. In order for a star to be stable though, it needs to have sufficient mass to keep the immense energy generated by fusion to keep from blowing the new "star" apart in a giant puff of plasma. It's an equilibrium between gravity and the star's own energy.
Saturn isn't massive enough to do this - it can't generate sufficient heat or pressure inside its core to start a fusion reaction. A few kilograms of plutonium isn't going to do a damn thing to start a fusion reaction, either. You could even detonate a fusion bomb in Saturn's core, and you might not even see the ripple by the time it got to the surface. The fusion bomb isn't going to start a full-scale nuclear reaction in Saturn's own atmosphere or core.
Nothing to worry about. We can't spawn new stars, at least not until we have the technology to funnel trillions upon trillions of cubic kilometers of hydrogen into one spot in space, and do so rapidly enough such that its own gravity will hold it together before it dissipates.
You mentioned Google results, so I went looking. I confirmed my suspicions, that the people coming up with these theories of idiocy are in fact, you guessed it: idiots.
From here:
"1997- Cassini is launched for Saturn with a tremendous load of Pu-238 dioxide (72 lbs!), many times the amount actually needed to run the craft?s instruments."
No freaking kidding. When it's launched, yeah, it's going to have a high output. But guess what, that plutonium decays. By the time it gets to Saturn, the output is already going to be lower than at launch.
Let's say that it needs 100W to run, and at launch, the RTG puts out 100W. By the time it gets to Saturn, 7 years later, its output will decline. If I understand the equation properly, after that time, and given plutonium's decay rate, the RTG would put out only 94.6W. Oops, can't run the spaceship anymore. Damn, that was an expensive mistake. That, and they'd like to have the chance of an extended mission available, for something like what we have with the Voyager probes. Now, Cassini is in orbit around a planet, with various interesting moons - staying in a scientifically useful orbit consumes fuel for the thrusters, so this will likely be the limiting factor on its usable lifespan. It also lacks a scan platform, so the entire spacecraft must swivel in order to target and track objects for scans. This eliminated the expense and complexity of a scan platform on what was already the largest and most complex probe ever sent to another planet, but it came at the cost of increased thruster usage.
Given that there's been water (frozen, with perhaps an sub-surface liquid reservoir) on the moon Enceladus, they won't want to risk crashing Cassini into it, contaminating it. This is why they sent Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere. It was not only running low on fuel, but its electronics were degrading due to the intense radiation at Jupiter. They didn't want to risk having it hit, and contaminate, Europa, a moon covered in a crust of water ice, possibly with an immense liquid water ocean beneath.
Concerning this "contamination" - spacecraft are sterilized, but there are limits to this, and specifications as to just how sterile something can be. Really making sure that every last microbe was dead would also likely nuke the electronics, and would make it really damned expensive. So there might be a few unwanted stowaways on the probes we send out.
But anyway, yes, they send these things out with more plutonium than is needed. New Horizons - another example. It's got a 9 year trip to get out to Pluto. It'd kind of suck to have it get there and not have enough power to get the job done. Then it's going to continue to fly through the Kuiper Belt, possibly making close flybys of other interesting objects. Again, if it doesn't have enough plutonium on board, it won't get a hell of a lot done.
I'm sure that if you're setting out on a 100 mile drive, and your car gets 30mpg, you're not going to put exactly 3 gallons and 5.333 ounces of gas in the tank.
Summary: People making up this BS about turning Saturn into a star weren't paying enough attention during middle school science, high school science, or any science class.
Rubycon
Madame President
- Aug 10, 2005
- 17,768
- 485
- 126
What on Earth (or Saturn for that matter) are they thinking? Cassini's not even close to being a fly in the ointment. But then again we have people that believe all the "smut" flying around the web via wifi is poisoning our bodies which in turn causes people to become violent unless purged. :laugh:
destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
- 28,799
- 359
- 126
The only way I could foresee such an event happening, is if they also figured out exactly what dark matter is, devised a way to grab some, and throw it into the center of Saturn. The amount of would have to be precise. But, regardless, stars can only form if they are hydrogen and helium.
First, you'd have to ditch the rocky core. That is going to screw everything up. Then, with the right amount of gravity in the center suddenly pulling all the hydrogen towards the core, the pressure would build, and MAYBE a reaction could occur. But, the mass might not be able to sustain a reaction for long enough, or the gravity from the dark matter would continue pulling everything in until it collapsed. It would likely just then dissipate and nothing would happen, because it wouldn't have the necessary gravity to create a black hole.
Essentially, worrying about any kind of doomsday scientist plot in regards to Saturn is wasted effort.
Dark matter, or at least, whatever the hell causes the gravity within galaxies (and we just attribute this unknown effect as 'dark matter', since there is no evidence other than strange and strong gravity to prove it exists), is necessary to begin drawing mass amounts of stellar gas towards a common point that then serves as a seed for a future star.
note, I'm not saying dark matter is at the center of stars. Just trying to theorize how the collection of gas occurs.
And, a star would likely not be able to form in the orbit of another star, as the gases within the orbit of that star would have already collected in the original star, and remaining material, the heavy elements, would slowly form into rings which collect into planets. Binary pairs form at the same time or in the same vicinity and just get caught up in orbit with each other due to the gravitational pull of each other.
+
First, you'd have to ditch the rocky core. That is going to screw everything up. Then, with the right amount of gravity in the center suddenly pulling all the hydrogen towards the core, the pressure would build, and MAYBE a reaction could occur. But, the mass might not be able to sustain a reaction for long enough, or the gravity from the dark matter would continue pulling everything in until it collapsed. It would likely just then dissipate and nothing would happen, because it wouldn't have the necessary gravity to create a black hole.
Essentially, worrying about any kind of doomsday scientist plot in regards to Saturn is wasted effort.
Dark matter, or at least, whatever the hell causes the gravity within galaxies (and we just attribute this unknown effect as 'dark matter', since there is no evidence other than strange and strong gravity to prove it exists), is necessary to begin drawing mass amounts of stellar gas towards a common point that then serves as a seed for a future star.
note, I'm not saying dark matter is at the center of stars. Just trying to theorize how the collection of gas occurs.
And, a star would likely not be able to form in the orbit of another star, as the gases within the orbit of that star would have already collected in the original star, and remaining material, the heavy elements, would slowly form into rings which collect into planets. Binary pairs form at the same time or in the same vicinity and just get caught up in orbit with each other due to the gravitational pull of each other.
+
The Boston Dangler
Lifer
- Mar 10, 2005
- 14,647
- 2
- 0
destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
- 28,799
- 359
- 126
i need those foot pads to pull the toxins out of my body!!!! QUICK! I don't wanna go on a rampage due to the effects these toxins have on my brain!
...
shit. Now I actually just have a hunger for brains. Hmm, I don't think they predicted this. Is this something else? Will the footpads work for this?!
+
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 19
- 81
Bolded there is what could be the best pickup line I've ever heard.
MOND - MOdified Newtonian Dynamics - has won my favor as a way of explaining away the need for dark matter.
It was interesting reading an article in Scientific American some time ago about dark matter. Long, multi-page article about dark matter, but in it was a little column about MOND, and how it explained, using only mathematics, the gravitational interactions within galaxies without the need for some mysterious invisible "stuff" everywhere. But it seemed like it was nearly being dismissed. There are a number of people who have built their careers on dark matter's existence. They probably wouldn't want to see it explained away as being little more than a glitch in some calculations. There are probes launched for the sole purpose of looking for this dark matter stuff.
Some time ago, they tried to explain the nature of "ether" which was everywhere in the Universe. Much effort was invested in studying it. Then it turned out that it didn't exist at all. Oops. Dark matter may well turn out the same way.
Unfortunately, our only basis for direct observation of our Universe is being done from the bottom of a gravity well.
These are just like those people who think CERN is going to cause Earth to turn into a black hole.
Bring on the next set of lunatics, please, this set is getting dull and predictable.
Bring on the next set of lunatics, please, this set is getting dull and predictable.
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
I was just reading about one of those nuts last weekend. Apparently, he's a lawyer who had a minor in physics in college, so he knows a thing or two about how dangerous CERN is. :roll:
Maybe the people at CERN could invite him to stand in the tunnel while a lower energy test is going on. Of course, he'd have to sign a waiver stating that he knew what he was doing and didn't hold CERN responsible for anything that could happen to him, since he had a minor in physics.
- Oct 10, 1999
- 31,252
- 12,777
- 136
God dammnit. It's articles like these and the LHC that make me question why I chose CompEng. as a major. I'd love to fuck with this kind of science...
silverpig
Lifer
- Jul 29, 2001
- 27,703
- 12
- 81
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Bolded there is what could be the best pickup line I've ever heard.
MOND - MOdified Newtonian Dynamics - has won my favor as a way of explaining away the need for dark matter.
It was interesting reading an article in Scientific American some time ago about dark matter. Long, multi-page article about dark matter, but in it was a little column about MOND, and how it explained, using only mathematics, the gravitational interactions within galaxies without the need for some mysterious invisible "stuff" everywhere. But it seemed like it was nearly being dismissed. There are a number of people who have built their careers on dark matter's existence. They probably wouldn't want to see it explained away as being little more than a glitch in some calculations. There are probes launched for the sole purpose of looking for this dark matter stuff.
Some time ago, they tried to explain the nature of "ether" which was everywhere in the Universe. Much effort was invested in studying it. Then it turned out that it didn't exist at all. Oops. Dark matter may well turn out the same way.
Unfortunately, our only basis for direct observation of our Universe is being done from the bottom of a gravity well.
I don't think MOND is compatible with the WMAP data though...
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 19
- 81
Really?
If you take some of the "raw" images from the Mars surface, taken by the Mars Rovers, and combine the RGB channels, you'll get a picture of Mars with a blue sky. This is apparently part of the big conspiracy which says that Mars is inhospitable to Earth-type life-forms. If you listen to them, you'd hear that not only does Mars have a blue sky, but it also has a dense atmosphere, and liquid water oozing out of the soil when light pressure is applied.
Problems with that:
1) The JPEG images available on NASA's site as "raw" imagery are not truly raw images. They are "stretched" - the lightest gray is assigned a color of "white," and the darkest gray is assigned a color code of "black."
2) These images are also not radiometrically calibrated.
The result of 1 and 2 is that when you combine the grayscale images from the RGB channels, you'll get a color picture that is nowhere near to how the scene really looks. If you'd do something similar with pictures taken on Earth, you may well wind up with a green sky and purple plants.
The sky of Mars would appear rusty pink to someone standing on the surface. The only blue you'll see would be during sunset - a sort of "halo" forms above the sun due to atmospheric refraction, and that would appear slightly blue.
Finally, the cameras themselves: genuine scientists and experts spent a lot of time and money making sure that the cameras would produce the most accurate colors possible. Technical papers exist on the calibration methods they developed, and the filters used.
3) There is water in the soil on the surface, but it won't ooze anywhere anytime soon. It's locked away in the form of mineral hydrates.
But it didn't have the magic plutonium in it, so the nutjobs won't pay any attention to it.
Still, I just have a feeling (I know, really scientific) it's going to turn out to be some sort of mathematical or observational error.
I would so love to see physics progress over the next few thousand years. We have but one tiny vantage-point from which to observe everything, stuck not only at the bottom of Earth's gravity well, but also within the sun's, and the galaxy's, shielded by the sun's magnetic field, effects of the solar wind, looking out through another filter of millions upon millions of stars. Hubble I got us a view from beyond the atmosphere. We need a Hubble II to get us a view from beyond the "atmosphere" of the galaxy, both in terms of its light and matter, but also a little farther from its gravitational influence.
There is so very much to be learned, and we've hardly begun to glimpse a way of starting to figure out how to even scratch the surface.
*sigh*
Maybe in another life, I'd have just gone straight from high school into theoretical physics, and damn the expense. Of course, calculus makes my brain hurt, and I can only guess in horror at the kind of math that'd show up in theoretical physics.
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