188

or just a 'poof'?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 115 points 3 months ago

I mean the sun is pretty heckin huge

It would a situation of, "who threw that pebble?"

[-] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 58 points 3 months ago

You can't fool me with that label of "diameter", I know that's actually a trench with an exhaust port that if successfully fired into will cause a cascading failure

[-] Deestan@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago
[-] teft@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

Now I'm imagining the type of event that could cause a planet to move at such a significant percent of c that you could disrupt the sun with it. I don't think we're gonna get a planet moving that fast. I think we'd be limited to stellar core remnants to get that kick in velocity.

[-] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

As it is, our entire solar system is orbiting at 514,000mph or about 1/1300th the speed of light relative to the center of the galaxy. And the Milky Way Galaxy is moving at about 1.3 million mph through the universe.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works 23 points 3 months ago

Okay so I forgot how big the sun is and had that absentminded mental picture moment of "oh it would make a big bang as something 3/4s the size of the sun would hit it"...

This picture was a very helpful reminder of just how out to lunch that thought was. Don't trust your absent thoughts, folks 😅

[-] djsaskdja@reddthat.com 20 points 3 months ago

The more I learn about the sun, the more I realize those ancient civilizations who worshipped it got it right. Look at that thing it’s fucking huge, scary, and it’s like right there.

[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 12 points 3 months ago

and like a millionth the size of betelgeuse

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] A_A@lemmy.world 83 points 3 months ago

it would be absolutely immensely catastrophic from the point of view of the planet ... but for us and for the Sun, it would be nothing.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 41 points 3 months ago

That always reminds me of force of impact. The bug hit the windshield just as hard as the windshield hit the bug, but the bug felt it more.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago

"oh look. A shadow."

"Oh. I missed it."

[-] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 65 points 3 months ago

Are you planning something?

[-] RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 61 points 3 months ago

For a start, the planet wouldn't actually collide with the sun on one piece - once the planet crosses the Roche limit it will break apart

[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 28 points 3 months ago

Sorry, but that’s wrong.

Roche limit applies in a circular orbit, tidal effects are irrelevant in a head on collision.

[-] willow@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 3 months ago

Famous example of a comet breaking up from entering Jupiter's roche limit in a highly eccentric orbit (not circular). Spaghettification is also an example of how tidal forces still apply during a head on collision.

[-] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 18 points 3 months ago

Eccentric orbit is still an orbit with tidal forces.

A dead in crash will stretch the sphere, but without angular momentum, it’s just a raindrop.

[-] A_A@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

if it "ran straight", it wouldn't have tangential speed, only radial.

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

All of the mass would still hit the sun, though.

[-] RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 30 points 3 months ago

Yeah, but single large mass hitting in one place vs stuff spread out vs planet forming a ring and deorbiting over months/years would affect the outcome

Practically, I'd think there wouldn't be a huge effect beyond some CMEs - the mass of the earth is a rounding error compared to the sun - but I'm not a cosmologist

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

I tend to agree, but I also am not a cosmologist.

[-] PoorYorick@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

I agree, and I once dated a cosmetologist.

[-] Beacon@fedia.io 9 points 3 months ago

CME = coronal mass ejection

[-] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 53 points 3 months ago

All the people on that planet would die.

[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 12 points 3 months ago

Due to their free floating nature, rogue planets are typically uninhabited.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Hey, a vacuous truth is still a truth!

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Akasazh@feddit.nl 37 points 3 months ago

I would expect the rogue to backstab and do crit damage on the dark side of the sun.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] toddestan@lemm.ee 34 points 3 months ago

Probably the biggest threat to us would be the rogue planet kicking some largish objects out in the Oort cloud into new orbits as it passed through. Some of the orbits would go into the inner solar system and could intersect with the Earth at some point.

[-] ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

Thankfully the chances of that happening would be reduced by the difference between the solar system's ecliptic place vs that of the Milky Way. According to this Stack Exchange user, it's a 60.2-degree difference. Illustrated beautifully here.

Then again, it isn't called a "cloud" for nothing. Still, a large chunk of it is theorized to be aligned with the plane of the solar system.

[-] Rubisco@slrpnk.net 23 points 3 months ago
[-] sxan@midwest.social 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Oooo, good question. What if it were traveling, relatively, at a fair percentage of C? Say 80 or 90%? What if it went not straight through the center, but say 30% off of center? Would any mass make a complete pass through, at that velocity? It'd be about 23% more dense from relativity, but countless YouTube videos about gun ammunition has taught me that velocity is the biggest factor in armor penetration. Would it blow a huge plume of plasma out the other side?

Dude, you just made this no doubt question far, far more interesting!

[-] cevn@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Fascinating. Lets say at 90% the planet spends 1 second inside the sun. Doesn’t seem like enough to melt the whole thing so it just keeps going, just a lot smaller. The core of the sun tried its best to push it back but gets pierced and the fusion reaction stops. Star killer??

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Edit: I was off by a big order of magnitude, see my reply to this comments reply.

~~No.~~ You are also forgetting the density of the sun increases with depth. For instance, if it's heading for the core - the solar core is about 155g/cm^3. Where as earth is 5.5g/cm3.

~~Essentially, going 0.9C is going to impact the sun, and we can say the incoming earth object is going to classically hit with 4.9*10^24 J.~~

~~At this size and and energy, we compare it to the rest energy of the entire sun (this isn't how we would actually do it) but the sun has a total resting mass energy equivalence of like 1.8x10^41 J.~~

~~The energy of the earth like object impacting the sun is 0.000000000000000027%.~~

~~The sun effectively doesn't even know it happened.~~

[-] cevn@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

I knew my crap science would get the real scientists in the comments, good point about the density. It would just sort of harmlessly splat.

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Now hold on, I did my math wrong. It was far too late at night. I used C=300000 not 3*10^8.

That gives us an impact energy, classically, of 5.37*10^41 J.

So that is about 3 times the kinetic energy than the engery at rest of Sol.

Sol is not at rest, further, we have non- insignificant factors at play here.

Sol is orbiting Sagittarius A* at 250km/s. Additionally, we have the general relativistic relationship between Sol and our massive projectile.

I'm going to work on modeling this, it got far more interesting.

[-] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

Another comparison here. If a human was just made of ballistics gel, weight for weight, meaning no vital organs or anything, a 10g round would hit a target it 1/9000 the side of.

Earth, hitting the sun would be like something 1/800000 this size of.

Oh shit my lunesta kicked in. Someone better double check my numbers

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] fritobugger2017@lemmy.world 22 points 3 months ago

Sun says yum.

[-] FunderPants@lemmy.ca 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I would expect that the planets gravity while heading into the sun from outside the solar system would greatly disturb the existing planets and probably throw some of them into new orbits if not out of the solar system entirely.

New fear unlocked.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] BlackJerseyGiant@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago

Big flare, seismic waves propagating on the surface, and POOF.

[-] General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Seeing as how the sun has flares that are wider across than the earth is, I don’t think it would do a whole lot. I’m on the fence, though. The surface of a star is the way it is and where it is because of two things: the immense pressure of the nuclear furnace and the immense gravity holding it together. Those two things basically fight against each other and determine how far out the surface of the star is.

I have to wonder if disturbing that equilibrium just for a second might cause a little “burp” or something.

[-] Eiri@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

This is speculation. I'm not a physicist.

Gravitational effects. It would almost certainly disturb a lot of asteroids and comets into new orbits. It wouldn't be a catastrophe for Earth , given the protection of the gas giants, but it would probably increase risks for the next few decades/centuries/millenniums. Depending on the exact trajectory of the planet, it would probably also disturb other planets' orbits a little. Anything radically different would be unlikely, but maybe something light and relatively unstable like Mercury would go nuts. As for Earth, in the likeliest scenarios, at most maybe the length of a year is altered.

The collision (perfectly head-on). It vastly depends on the speed. If it's very slow, it'll probably be diverted from the sun by the other planets and solar winds. If it's fast but not relativistic, it'll probably cause massive solar flares and very obvious sun spots for a while. At relativistic speeds (a sizeable fraction of the speed of light), though, it would be a lot of energy. Something big would probably happen when the extremely fast planet smashes into the dense core of the sun, probably. I'm not sure what though. Maybe it would temporarily strengthen fusion and cause some sort of micro supernova?

The collision(glancing blow). The sun is massive but most of its volume is pretty wispy. Most of its volume is a lot less dense than a planet, so the planet would likely have a pretty dramatic effect on it. If it's fast enough, it might even come out on the other side, smashed to pieces by gravitational forces and thermal shock. It might expel a lot of plasma in a stream, like a squishy body shot with the fastest bullet in the world. A bullet on a curved trajectory though, because the proximity to the sun's core would likely steer it significantly. If the planet was going fast enough to escape despite the friction having it slowed down and the massive gravitational pull, then I could imagine pretty much a shotgun of planet chunks shot through the solar system. It might not hit anything, and probably won't considering how much of the solar system is empty space, but if it does, it would be catastrophic for, say, Earth.

As for long term effects, if the planet indeed merges into the sun, it would increase the sun' metallicity (content in elements heavier than helium) by a tiny percentage. It might affect its long term evolution by a very small margin. If it's a glancing blow that's not extremely fast and it's just right to create a mostly stable orbit, it might form a new asteroid belt that may or may not coalesce into a new planet in time.

don’t open this if you don’t want part of the three body problem series spoiledIsn’t that the core element of one of the scorched earth fallback plans one of the wallfacers came up with? I thought it was supposed to have been roughly scientifically viable…? Or am I completely misremembering?

[-] learningduck@programming.dev 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Incorrect. The plan was to send a signal to the sun to signal that our sun has a civilized planet, so that an unspecified alien race would blow the sun up to prevent humanity any further.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] bran_buckler@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Would its impact create a solar flare? And if that flare was hurtling towards Earth, would it be more devastating than other solar storms we normally see?

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
188 points (99.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35868 readers
433 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS