What is a conceivable way, in sci-fi, to destroy a star. Say you wanted to force it to supernova in a matter of hours instead of waiting billions of years. How could this be accomplished, conceivably?
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Throw another star into it is what pops into my mind.
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
I'd like something a bit more practical. In Generations they came up with some bogus way for Soran to stop a star from contuining its fusion reactions or something. I'd like to do one better if I can. Basically I'd like whatever weapon or device used to not only force a star to nova (or destroy it or whatever) but also be somewhat portable.
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
Wow. This is the opening chapter to Kevin J. Anderson's Hidden Empire. (He throws a star into a sun by creating a blackhole.)
Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :
Basically, all you have to do is reduce the mass. Every stable star has a very precisely pre-determined mass (I won't go through the Chandrasekhar limit here). If you reduce it somehow, it will spontaneously collapse. If the initial mass is big enough, you get a supernova. Even bigger mass and you've got yourself a black hole.
I believe they did this in one of the Stargate episodes. They pushed a stargate inside a star and connected it to a different stargate that had a black hole on the other side. The star's mass got pulled through the stargate and they got a chain reaction which led to a collapse.
One thing you should know: when the collapse reaction starts, it takes very little time for a supernova to occur. I'm talking about seconds here, so not everything in space is happening on a billions-of-years scale.
One method to compress the star is to make use of the magnetic fields. Get ships of high magnetism opposite the polarity where they are at, and start orbiting the star in the opposite direction of the spin.
The idea would be to wrap the magnetism around the sun to the point where it starts compressing the star. Sort of like the magnetic fields in particle accelerators.
The sun gets hotter and hotter, and the pressure inside increases. The only trip is to have enough ships, with high enough charges, working in unison against the sun's magnetism.
If these are robotic ships, when the energy reaches a high enough level, turn off the magnetism and let the energy expand out. The ships would be destroyed, but you would not mind too much.
Posted by snapper (Member # 7299) on :
How about a big ball of anti-matter. Say the size of Jupiter. That should do it but where you find it might be a problem.
You could always invent your own solution. Like hyper-matter; matter that is moving faster than light. It would accelerate the fusion process, like bellowing air into furnace (how's that for a Star Trek explanation).
Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :
I remember in several stories where the ships always had to get a good distance away from a gravitational source before they entered hyperdrive. I don't remember the details, but got the impression that it was not good for the planet if they accellerated too close.
I also remember many stories where if navagation was wrong, one could have a ship in hyperdrive end up in the middle of a star. Not a good thing to happen.
I also remember reading somewhere in the late 80s, that if one placed antimatter in the exact center of the sun, it would disrupt the sun. One might use a ship full of antimatter appear in the middle of the star. The magnetic bottle would fail, matter and antimatter meets. star disrupted.
Teleportation might work, but only if you can beam that far into the sun.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I haven't read Kevin J. I probably was thinking back to the star-throwing-around days of E. E. "Doc" Smith.
(And it was just something off the top of my head, without considering the physics of the matter.)
Posted by Zero (Member # 3619) on :
Thanks for the ideas, I really appreciate it. It'll probably take me some time to flesh out exactly which one is best for the tech level in my story.
quote:I also remember many stories where if navagation was wrong, one could have a ship in hyperdrive end up in the middle of a star.
I always thought that was kind of silly since space is so very not dense. The probability of hitting a star, which can be tens to hundreds to thousands of lightyears apart, is so immensely small it'd be like the bull's eye of the century.
[This message has been edited by Zero (edited July 21, 2009).]