John Barrett
Posted:
Thu Feb 12, 2004 10:05 pm
Joined: 12 Feb 2004
Posts: 1
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Remove Mass From Sun - Prolong Life On Earth Billions Years
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REMOVE MASS FROM SUN - PROLONG HABITABILITY OF EARTH BILLIONS OF YEARS. NASA SHOULD PERFORM PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTS NOW - REMOVE MASS FROM SUN in THIS CENTURY
NASA SHOULD RESEARCH TECHNOLOGIES TO PROLONG LIFE ON EARTH BY REMOVING MASS FROM SUN John B. Barrett Jr [2003 mail address 300 Evergreen Loop Forks WA 98331-9680]
I have been researching whether someday it will be possible to remove mass from the sun. to keep the earth habitable many millions of years longer, and energy sources for long term human survival. The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA should examine technologies. The stability of a star on the main sequence depends critically on its total mass. Large stars overheat and burn out quickly whereas small red dwarf stars remain stable potentially trillions of years. In 1992 I read a Ken Caldeira - James Kasting article in NATURE magazine estimating that the sun becomes about ten per cent warmer every billion years, and about 1995 I attended a talk by James Kasting at Harvard, which was hosted by Professor Heinrich Holland, the paleosol specialist. [Professors John Imbrie and Warren Prell of Brown University participated in discussion.] I have been interested in the problem whether life on earth can be prolonged by removing mass from sun. It appeared extremely difficult for space ships to penetrate close to sun's surface, but April 7 I realized that heating the surface of the sun would increase loss of mass in solar wind. It will take a great deal of energy to achieve optimum effect, but the time frame would be very long. Fusion powered lasers, reflectors or greenhouse gases to reflect sun's own energy, magnetically contained anti-matter, disruption of sun's surface to expose hotter interior gas would be strategies, or beaming energy from hot objects in deep space or using nearby brown dwarfs as hydrogen source for fusion all come to mind. - In the essay below please note NINE NUMBERED ENERGY SOURCES 1. Fusion Powered LASERS orbiting sun 2. REFLECTORS around sun 3. A GREENHOUSE GAS around sun to warm its surface - this probably would need to be contained by a strong magnetic field to keep it in place 4. ANTIMATTER - magnetically contained - probably manufactured in deep space as a means to bring energy here in 'storage' 5. DISRUPT relatively cool SUN SURFACE 5500 degrees Celsius and expose hotter layers beneath deeper 6. BEAM HIGH ENERGY from DEEP SPACE Develop technology to beam high energy long distances from far away hot objects - periphery of black holes and neutron stars -possibly bend the intense beams of pulsars. 7. NEARBY BROWN DWARF HYDROGEN Find nearby sub-star "Brown dwarfs" that probably exist within two or three light years from earth and utilize their hydrogen or hydrogen clouds in space for fusion. 8. OORT CLOUD COMETS Oort cloud comets within half a light year from sun as hydrogen source. 9. Design HEAT RESISTANT SPACE SHIPS concentrations occur in sunspots? Three other points: I. Do helium concentrations occur in sunspots? It would be desirable to remove a portion of helium as well as the lighter hydrogen. II.Second, success in reducing mass of sun would change orbits of earth and planets - they would move outerward, which might be helpful in long run but would need to be calculated very carefully. III. - About seventy per cent of the sun's 433,000 miles radius, heat from fusion comes out by radiation through very hot dense, plasma. In the outer thirty per cent of the sun's radius - which must be 129,000 miles - more than five times circumference of earth, plasma convection is the main way the heat comes to surface. I want to learn more about this convection process.
One important technique is helioseismology. Whether there is any way future engineers could affect this convection process I don't know at present. I have seen estimates it takes a million years for energy to get to the surface after it is generated by fusion at the core. - - John Barrett SUN MASS Removal STAGES- - :-
In comment on the foregoing Harvard Astronomy Professor David Latham has suggested that it will take a great deal of energy to achieve the ideal maximum amount of mass removal from the sun to keep the earth habitable as long as possible. However the time frame is very long. The basic equation is mv squared or m DELTA v squared, where m is the desired amount of mass removed, and Delta V is the difference between starting velocity and escape velocity. I believe that "m" the ideal amount of mass to remove over four or five billion years is not precisely known at present. The optimum rate of removal is likely to be a curve rather than a straight line. Too rapid a beginning might trigger an ice age or orbital instability of earth and planets. The longest-lived stars have 7.5 to eight per cent of the mass of the sun and are estimated to remain on Main Sequence with stable heat output about five thousand trillion years [5 x 10 to twelfth power]. In atlas of the Universe 1998 I see an estimate that sun equals 333,000 earth masses. Suppose that in four billion years, it was desired to remove eighty per cent of present solar mass - this is very likely more than enough, but illustrates the nature of the calculation. This would mean if one proceeded in a linear fashion, that one per cent of solar mass should be eliminated in the first fifty million years, dividing four billion by eighty. So 3,330 earth masses would be removed in fifty million years, or 66.6 earth masses per one million years - around one earth mass every fifteen thousand years. The acceleration would be complex. I have heard the escape velocity at the surface of the sun estimated between 384 miles per second and 500 kilometers per second. However, the heat of the solar surface 5500 C and the much higher heat and convective motion just below the surface may contribute significantly to the starting energy as we come to understand how the existing solar wind forms and the stellar winds of other stars,including those hotter than the sun. For seven years I have been studying whether it would be possible to remove ANY mass from the sun. ,
The United State space agency NASA might experimentally try to remove a small amount of mass from the sun to observe technology. The time may come in perhaps a few centuries , when we might test procedures on a nearby star such as Alpha Centauri four light years away.before working on the sun on a larger scale. As a target, perhaps an experimental small operation to remove a little mass from the sun might be targeted for the year 2099, within the lifetime of persons now living. Since April 7, 2000 a number of possible technologies have come to mind, but they will require huge amounts of energy.Most of the technologies involve heating the solar surface to increase the amount of mass that escapes in the solar wind. At present it has been estimated about one hundred trillionth of solar mass escapes each year in naturally occurring solar wind. Hopefully, the sun's own energy can be utilized in one way or another.It is conceivable that over thousands and millions of years ways can be found to store energy from giant objects deep in space,and then beam or transport it Most technologies involve application of some form of heat to the solar surface. There may also be the possibilty of disrupting the surface chromosphere and exposing slightly deeper layers which are much hotter. In the order I have thought of them, these are techniques for warming the solar surface- locally or around the entire surface. [1] Lasers - possibly utilizing hydrogen from the sun itself for fusion power. [2] Reflectors or mirrors to aim the sun's own heat back at the surface. [3} A greenhouse gas - if one can be maintained stably in the lower corona, this would be the ultimate mirror or reflector. Extremely high million-degree C. temperatures occur in portions of the lower corona, and the forces that cause them are not completely known- very likely magnetism is involved. This strategy would take mass relatively uniformly from all areas of the surface. It would be desirable to remove mass from the polar regions of the sun, so that it would travel away from the orbit of the earth and other planets. [4] Disruption of the cooler chromosphere to expose hotter interior gas or plasma. [5] ANTI-MATTER- would be extremely effective annihiliating some of the sun's mass and generating astonishing heat if ANTIMATTER can be found, manufactured and handled and contained, as by very strong magnetic fields. There might be advantages in concentrating the ANTIMATTER at very low temperatures near absolute zero possibly utilizing superconductivity to assist handling, which is far in the future .[6] collect energy from hot distant sources such as black holes, neutron stars,supernovas, giant stars and beam it to solar system[7] find nearby BROWN dwarfs believed to exist within a few light years of earth and utilize their hydrogen or intragalactic clouds for FUSION. [8] Utilize Oort Cloud comets gravitationally bound to solar system as hydrogren source. [9] Design heat-resistant space ships that can withstand tmperatures above 3000 degrees C. These might use refractory materials such as tantalum carbide which melts above 3800 C - various forms of carbon perhaps fullerene or nanotube - tungsten, thorium oxide. Albert Brown of Joyce suggests solar heat might be turned to electricity, at the same time cooling outer surface and powering space craft and lasers. He also suggests comet ice might contribute - a space ship could even operate for a time placed inside comet ice. The sun is presently about seventy-one per cent hydrogen, twenty-seven per cent helium, and two per cent heavier elements. The removal of helium probably would favor stability, but the helium tends to be concentrated near the core, as David Latham pointed out in 1995.
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Prolong life on earth - remove mass from sun to delay overheating - NASA should aim to do experimental demonstration in this century. Small stars are more stable.
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