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Star-Destroying Superweapon: Science Fiction Or Fact?
CREDIT: NASA.
In this occasional series, Life’s Little Mysteries explores the plausibility of popular science fiction concepts.
In science fiction, planet-busting superweapons are all the craze. Yet even more terrifying than the ability to destroy a planet is the wherewithal to take out an entire star. The sun Crusher in the “Star Wars” Jedi Academy novel trilogy serves as an example of such a godlike device.
Overall, solar annihilators are rare compared to plain ol’ world-enders, indeed scaling with the inherent difficultly of star-killing, at least from a modern physics and technology standpoint. [Planet-Destroying Superweapon]
The dastardly deed is theoretically possible, however, and even on time scales not stretching into millions of years. “There’s one scheme to me that seems not quite plausible, but it’s close,” said Mike Zarnstorff, an experimental plasma physicist and deputy director for research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Read on to find out how future Dr. Evils might hold a whole solar system for ransom.
Tough star stuff
Destroying a star poses two major problems. For one, the kinds of stars that would typically host habitable planets are colossal, both size- and mass-wise. Our sun, for instance, spans 865,000 miles in diameter, can store about a million Earths in its interior and sports a mass of approximately two octillion metric tons. (That’s a two followed by 27 zeroes.)
Secondly, stars are hot. Just look at how hot the sun is, and it’s middle-of-the road: The sun’s corona, essentially a stellar “atmosphere,” blazes at around 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit; the far-cooler surface still roasts around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The composition of a star is a related issue. Stars are simple spheres of superheated gas, or plasma, roiling about in balance (for most of their long lives) between gravitational collapse and the buoyancy of energy-releasing fusion reactions. Stars, in effect, are made to chug along, and in our sun’s case for more than 10 billion years.
“Stars are really big and have a lot of inertia,” or resistance to a change in their state, “and that inclines them to keep doing what they’re doing,” said Zarnstorff.
What do they want to create a false hope that they could destroy Nemesis/Nibiru/Planet X / Wormwood/or whatever you call it? Nonsense , this evil and wrong on every front , man is NOT God and in no way would be allowed to have such power in his hands, there would be an intervention to stop this , the entire concept of such a weapon is just wrong!