Really weird sci-fi question concerning the future of the human race?

Question

If the human race billions of years from now brought hydrogen from some distant source and fed it into the sun (I know it would have to be a lot), could they keep the sun "living" and continue to live on Earth longer than we predict at this point to be possible?

Larry R.-- I do read books; how do you think I came up with this question?

Answer 1

Hmmm, interesting question...I'll give it a definitive "maybe." However, since we would be increasing the mass of the sun, it would get bigger and more luminous and we'd probably have to move the Earth to a farther orbit. Assuming we had developed that ability to move that much hydrogen, then moving the Earth would be easy! (right?) Still, by increasing the mass of the sun, it would burn the hydrogen even faster...so we could end up with a cascade effect of having to bring even more hydrogen at ever increasing rates!! And then'd you'd have that pesky problem of overcoming the mass-threshold of the sun being able to go supernova on our collective butt...but, of course, it couldn't actually do that until all the hydrogen was burned up and the sun went onto the further stages of stellar evolution. So.....eventually we'd end up with this super-massive star and the Earth moved out to the Oort Cloud.

Hmmm, yeah, sci-fi question indeed!! But a fun one.

Answer 2

Yes, if you could inject more hydrogen into the core of the sun it would last longer. You would not bring it from far away, but rather use the hydrogen in the solar envelope around the core and somehow mix it into the core. (In most main sequence stars, only about 10% of the star's mass undergoes hydrogen fusion.)

Keep in mind that the sun is gradually brightening during its main sequence lifetime, (prior to the red giant phase) and in a few billion years it will be warm enough to evaporate a good deal of the oceans creating a serious runaway greenhouse effect. All that water in the upper atmosphere will slowly be hydrolyzed (split into hydrogen and oxygen) by UV radiation and the hydrogen will be lost to space. A hundred million years or so of this and the Earth will be without water. This will eliminate life long before the sun goes red giant.

Probably it is easier to move the earth into a larger orbit as the sun brightens. There actually was a published peer review paper on how this might be done by diverting lower mass bodies into near Earth orbit and "stealing" their angular momentum for the Earth.

Answer 3

I like this question.

Even if for some reason humans were still around billions of years from now (unlikely)

Even if for some reason it was desirable to stay on Earth and transport the necessary quantities of hydrogen to keep the sun in the main sequence stage and not going nova or red giant.

Even if the more reasonable tactic of moving to Pluto or a nearby system is ignored.

Adding that much hydrogen to the sun's mass would create a star much hotter than we currently have.

As it is, the sun gets hotter as we speak, but stars that are twice as massive as the sun are ten times hotter.

Trying to extend the life of the sun would result in frying the earth and moving the habitable zone out to Pluto anyway.

Answer 4

Billions of years is a very long time. By that I mean that in a few million years we will have evolved into something different than what we are now. With that said one could ask what would the purpose be for extending the lifespan of a star? If we colonize other worlds in different star systems, and I think if we survive we will, it is entirely possible that the origins of humanity could easily be lost in all that time. If there was some religious reason for preserving the memory of our star system we might attempt to save it. If there were any resources left on Earth which could not be found elsewhere we might save it, but I don't think that will be the case. If on the other hand we never colonize other worlds then it's highly unlikely that we would develope the technology to harvest resources from other places either.

Answer 5

The problem with that is that when the sun's hydrogen converts to helium billions of years from now, the sun will become a red giant and overheat the Earth. We would have to get rid of the excess helium, even if we could get hydrogen to replace it. That would take a lot of energy.

The only way we could get hydrogen is to scoop it from the interstellar medium, or get it from another star. Either way, we would have to travel great distances to get hydrogen, and we would not be able to replace it fast enough due to that little thing called the speed of light.

The energy and time would be far better spent looking for a new home for humanity.

Answer 6

If you kept adding Hydrogen mass to the sun, it would begin to exhibit the same life cycle as existing larger stars.

Add enough, and the Sun will collapse under its own gravitational pull. Add more, and it will collapse into a singularity.

As far as living on Earth longer...Who needs the sun? If you can control the energies needed to transport solar masses, you can certainly light the place up with a few sunlamps.

Now...go read a book.

Answer 7

I doubt that, because the sun probably consumes more hydrogen fuel in a second than could be transported into it in a year. We'd have to have some pretty serious and unreal gas transport capacity.

That, and think about it--if we had the technology to do something like that, wouldn't we sooner go live in another solar system, with billions of years left on its solar clock?

Answer 8

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1985) wrote youthful-man or woman novels with backgrounds on the Moon, Venus, Mars, and the asteroids, quite Ganymede. a lot less replaced into generic about the planets and moons decrease back then, so those about Venus, pretty, must be no longer conceivable. besides the undeniable fact that, the thoughts are thrilling, the characters demonstrate can-do attitudes, and the technological understanding is a minimum of conceivable given the defined backgrounds. they could look extremely naïve by in the present day's criteria, on account that they were written fifty or sixty years in the past, yet we loved them on the time, and they are nevertheless attainable in libraries and used bookstores. lots of Heinlein's books are nevertheless in print. right here's a sampling: .. area Cadet (1948) — men attend a military academy in 2075, with a visit to Venus. .. pink Planet (1949) — Colonists on Mars are stranded by penny-pinching directors from Earth. .. Farmer contained in the Sky (1950) — The teenage hero emigrates to Ganymede at the same time with his family individuals, and starts a clean existence there. .. between Planets (1951) — With twin Earth/Venus citizenship, the hero is stuck in a revolution. .. The Rolling Stones (1952) — A family individuals of scientists and engineers takes a visit by the asteroids. .. The action picture star Beast (1954) — The hero's unusual puppy seems to be an interplanetary ambassador. .. Double action picture star (1956) — one among Heinlein's proper. An out-of-artwork actor (the standpoint personality) is dragooned into impersonating an interplanetary chief who has lengthy gone lacking. most of the action takes position on Mars. .. Have area tournament, Will go back and forth (1958) — The hero wins a 2d-hand area tournament in a competition, and is going adventuring. .. Podkayne of Mars (1963) — Heinlein's significant personality is a teenage woman with a astounding, bratty youthful brother. They get into dire circumstances on Mars and Venus. in case you'll detect a duplicate, Alexei Panshin's "Heinlein in measurement" (1968) is an extremely readable severe biography of Heinlein's artwork as a lot as that date.

Answer 9

This is ahypathatical question
If you can supply hydrogen from outer space to the earth You can suck the waste produced by the sun and send to outer space as well. Then it will for ever.

Answer 10

It would prove too costly. one solution would be to alter Earth's orbit to a further away area while the sun expands in diameter. Hey...but we still have almost 3 billion years left. That of course, if we make it then.