Second Star?

[Invalid]

I have a question. I have wondered about this for a few years. I am more interested in this now that I got to see 2001 & 2010 a few months ago.

I wonder if all of our gas planets were combined would that be enough gas to make it into a star? Even a small one?

i doubt it but if not would it have enough gas to at least become a brown dwarf?

What is the amount of gas required to become a brown dwarf or star?

 

[3488]

Hi Invalid,

The answer is no.

IIRC the minimum threshold for a Brown Dwarf is eight Jupiter masses. For a red dwarf star approx 75 Jupiter masses.

If we combined Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune you would up with a more massive Jupiter approx one third more massive than it is already.

Jupiter = 318 Earth Masses.
Saturn= 95 Earth Masses.
Uranus = 15 Earth Masses.
Neptune = 17 Earth Masses.
In total a body with 445 Earth Masses.

8 Jupiter masses / 1 Small Brown Dwarf = 2,544 Earth Masses MINIMUM.
75 Jupiter Masses / Smallest possible 'proper' star undergoing fusion at it's core)= 23,850 Earth Masses MINIMUM.

So there is not nearly enough mess in our giant planets combined to produce either a Brown Dwarf or a second sun.

Andrew Brown.

 

[MeteorWayne]

In fact, there's not enough mass in the entire solar system (not including the sun) to make another star.

 

[Polishguy]

Hi Invalid,

The answer is no.

IIRC the minimum threshold for a Brown Dwarf is eight Jupiter masses. For a red dwarf star approx 75 Jupiter masses.

If we combined Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Neptune you would up with a more massive Jupiter approx one third more massive than it is already.

Jupiter = 318 Earth Masses.
Saturn= 95 Earth Masses.
Uranus = 15 Earth Masses.
Neptune = 17 Earth Masses.
In total a body with 445 Earth Masses.

8 Jupiter masses / 1 Small Brown Dwarf = 2,544 Earth Masses MINIMUM.
75 Jupiter Masses / Smallest possible 'proper' star undergoing fusion at it's core)= 23,850 Earth Masses MINIMUM.

So there is not nearly enough mess in our giant planets combined to produce either a Brown Dwarf or a second sun.

Andrew Brown.

I'm not sure why, but I always thought Saturn was bigger than that.

 

[MeteorWayne]

It's big, but it has little proportionate mass. If there was an ocean big enough, it would float.

 

[Invalid]

Cool thanks. Interesting to know.

Although I always thought that all the gas planets were all about the same size. I knew Jupiter was the biggest but I didn't know that Jupiter was that much bigger then the rest.

Ok we need to bring 74 more Jupiter-sized gas planets to our solar system. Lets get to work! :lol:

 

[BenS1985]

Saturn is almost as large as Jupiter (60,000km vs. 71,000km equatorial radius), but far less dense (0.7 g/cm3 vs. 1.3 g/cm3).

So essentially, Saturn is 84% the size, but only 52% as dense. That is what causes it to have a much lower mass.

 

[robnissen]

In fact, there's not enough mass in the entire solar system (not including the sun) to make another star.

There is not even enough mass in the Solar System to make another Jupiter (not counting the sun), let alone another star.

 

[aaron38]

If you read Clarke's novel, you discover that the purpose of the monoliths multiplying at the end of 2010 and "eating" the planet was that they were doubling in mass. HOW they were doubling in mass is the fiction part. The science part is that they jacked Jupiter's mass up over the threshold in a hurry, allowing fusion to occur. The special effects depict Jupiter, (or Lucifer if you read 2063) as being a bright yellow G or K class star. But in actuallity Jupiter would have become a red dwarf, which would be all that would be needed to warm the Galilean Moons.

 

[jgrtmp]

Clark did that for his book, but the fact is Jupiter has 0.6 solar masses & will not incubate unless it acquires a significant amount of mass. It is speculated that since stellar systems move faster than the spiral arms of a galaxy, when we move through a spiral arm our stars rejuvinate. Thus over time & accrual of mass Jupitar may well make this system a Binary, but that is a long way away if possible.

 

[bdewoody]

Ain't it hot enough for you with just one star?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Clark did that for his book, but the fact is Jupiter has 0.6 solar masses & will not incubate unless it acquires a significant amount of mass. It is speculated that since stellar systems move faster than the spiral arms of a galaxy, when we move through a spiral arm our stars rejuvinate. Thus over time & accrual of mass Jupitar may well make this system a Binary, but that is a long way away if possible.

Uh, a little bit off there. Jupiter has 0.00095 solar mass.

 

[eburacum45]

I think that in Clarke's 2010 the monoliths were in fact increasing Jupiter's density, rather than its mass. Increase the density of Jupiter enough and eventually you would reach enough pressure in the centre to allow deuterium fusion, and Jupiter would become a brown dwarf.

How would the monoliths increase the density of Jupiter? Presumably by transmuting hydrogen and helium into some much heavier element.

However Clarke missed a trick, here. The process of transmutation itself would presumably be a form of artificial fusion; this process would produce excess heat (at least up to iron, anyways). So if you can somehow induce artificial fusion in a gas giant you can get as much energy as you need to make it shine. The problem is producing enough artificial fusion in a gas giant environment. If monopoles were real and available they would do the job...

 

[eburacum45]

In Orion's Arm we use monopole-catalysed fusion to turn gas giants into little stars;
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a48d58c84350
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4aaed9e9c33af

hard-sf fans might recall that Larry Niven described this exotic form of fusion many decades ago, but monopoles would have may uses if they could be made to order.

 

[Delphinus100]

In fact, there's not enough mass in the entire solar system (not including the sun) to make another star.

There is not even enough mass in the Solar System to make another Jupiter (not counting the sun), let alone another star.

Which is the reason Isaac Asimov once remarked; 'The solar system consists of Jupiter...plus debris."

Even so, It's hard to imagine a means by which you could GENTLY bring Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune together, and not have a collision that would scatter a significant part of their mass back into space...

(I sometimes think Australia's Ayers Rock is what it might look like, if you could GENTLY set an asteroid that size on Earth's surface, then wait maybe a thousand years for weathering, and settling into the ground...but I haven't solved the 'gentle' part here, either...)

 

[Geoduck2]

(I sometimes think Australia's Ayers Rock is what it might look like, if you could GENTLY set an asteroid that size on Earth's surface, then wait maybe a thousand years for weathering, and settling into the ground...but I haven't solved the 'gentle' part here, either...)

It's the details that always complicate life.
I once ran across a description of how to levitate a heavy object.
"Put it on top of a mountain, and then take the mountain away."
I guess everything else is just an engineering problem. :lol:

 

[netdragon]

H
Jupiter = 318 Earth Masses.
Saturn= 95 Earth Masses.
Uranus = 15 Earth Masses.
Neptune = 17 Earth Masses.
In total a body with 445 Earth Masses.

8 Jupiter masses / 1 Small Brown Dwarf = 2,544 Earth Masses MINIMUM.

On a side-quesstion: would the proposed body 1/5 of a brown dwarf mass start sucking in the asteroid and kuiper belt (aside from wreaking general havoc that any shift in mass relative to other masses would do)? Obviously, with 1/10 the mass of earth, the kuiper belt and asteroid belt wouldn't make a difference as far as the original questions goes (even with the oort cloud further out, we're talking about 5 times the mass of earth). I'm just curious if it would sweep them all in like a ship vac.

Also, with the increased pressure, how hot would this world be? I assume there's a gradient between jupiter size planets and brown dwarfs since in either case, there is no fusion.

 

[Invalid]

If you read Clarke's novel, you discover that the purpose of the monoliths multiplying at the end of 2010 and "eating" the planet was that they were doubling in mass. HOW they were doubling in mass is the fiction part. The science part is that they jacked Jupiter's mass up over the threshold in a hurry, allowing fusion to occur. The special effects depict Jupiter, (or Lucifer if you read 2063) as being a bright yellow G or K class star. But in actuallity Jupiter would have become a red dwarf, which would be all that would be needed to warm the Galilean Moons.

I think that in Clarke's 2010 the monoliths were in fact increasing Jupiter's density, rather than its mass. Increase the density of Jupiter enough and eventually you would reach enough pressure in the centre to allow deuterium fusion, and Jupiter would become a brown dwarf.

How would the monoliths increase the density of Jupiter? Presumably by transmuting hydrogen and helium into some much heavier element.

However Clarke missed a trick, here. The process of transmutation itself would presumably be a form of artificial fusion; this process would produce excess heat (at least up to iron, anyways). So if you can somehow induce artificial fusion in a gas giant you can get as much energy as you need to make it shine. The problem is producing enough artificial fusion in a gas giant environment. If monopoles were real and available they would do the job...

lol I just thought the monoliths were massive enough to make Jupiter a star. I didn't think there was something behind it.

On a side-quesstion: would the proposed body 1/5 of a brown dwarf mass start sucking in the asteroid and kuiper belt (aside from wreaking general havoc that any shift in mass relative to other masses would do)? Obviously, with 1/10 the mass of earth, the kuiper belt and asteroid belt wouldn't make a difference as far as the original questions goes (even with the oort cloud further out, we're talking about 5 times the mass of earth). I'm just curious if it would sweep them all in like a ship vac.

The asteroid belt maybe but wouldn't it depend where the new planet would form? I don't think it would have enough gravity to get both. It's not really increasing by that much.

Also, with the increased pressure, how hot would this world be? I assume there's a gradient between jupiter size planets and brown dwarfs since in either case, there is no fusion.

Wouldn't it only get hot once it gets fussion working? Aren't gas planets not near their star supposed to be cold and in fact made farther out from ice and dust?

1) What would the color of this new planet be? (still reddish?)
2) What would its name be? - (Jusarne?)
3) Wasn't there a space.com article a few days ago (not "Strange Lava World Is Shriveled Remains of Former Self ") about a planet near its star about 10 Jupiter masses? But they called it a planet? So is it possible for something that large to remain a planet at that mass (made out of rock not gas?).
4) So how do other systems get two stars. On another article I think I read that our system has more material than most other systems. So how are binary stars made? Together or two separate caught gravitationally?
5) Would it be possible for the sun to capture another star? (or is it too small?)

EDIT: whoops I guess I went a bit far with the questions... But I had to do it, I needed an even 10...
EDIT2: I cut it down to get rid of the pointless questions. Down to an even 5 I guess...

 

[CalliArcale]

Don't try to overthink 2010 -- the monoliths are adhering to Clarke's Law: "Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic." In other words, he uses super-advanced alien tech to cheat. ;-)

(Also, while Clarke was a very smart man and came up with some very clever things, he wasn't always right. He was convinced, for instance, that there were aliens living on Mars and Europa based on some rather dubious conclusions reached from pictures taken by deep space probes. He also rather unfairly took credit for predicting that Io would be hellish, and Iapetus would be half black and half white. Actual astronomers made those predictions first. In particular, Iapetus' coloration had been predicted several *centuries* earlier by Giovanni Cassini.)

 

[Bootsiuv]

Also, with the increased pressure, how hot would this world be? I assume there's a gradient between jupiter size planets and brown dwarfs since in either case, there is no fusion.

Wouldn't it only get hot once it gets fussion working? Aren't gas planets not near their star supposed to be cold and in fact made farther out from ice and dust?

No, that isn't true. Jupiter is hotter than the surface of the sun at it's core, and the other gas giants are thought to be many thousands of degrees at their cores, even if their upper atmospheres are extremely cold. The enormous pressures involved are the reasons behind this.

Some speculate that brown dwarves are hot enough to have an atmosphere where Iron acts very similiarly to water, driving weather patterns in much the same way that water vapor drives weather patterns here on earth. There may even be iron rain. A brown dwarf is not massive enough to initiate fusion, but it is still extraordinarily hot and shines with it's own dim light (albeit many thousand times fainter than the faintest "true" stars).

4) So how do other systems get two stars. On another article I think I read that our system has more material than most other systems. So how are binary stars made? Together or two separate caught gravitationally?

The solar system has more mass than most other systems because the sun is actually a relatively large star by cosmic standards. We were all taught growing up that our sun was "average", but this has been proven false since then. Of the 50 closest stars, our sun is the 4th largest. Most binary systems are made up of red/white dwarves, which are relatively low in mass when compared to our sun.

 

[yevaud]

You guys have the Clarke reference somewhat wrong. If you read the novel again closely, what you'll notice is that the monoliths compressed Jupiter into an increasingly smaller size, pushing it over the thermal limit to begin fusion. Yes, a small amount of mass was added via the inclusion of the monoliths, but only fractionally.

 

[Invalid]

No, that isn't true. Jupiter is hotter than the surface of the sun at it's core, and the other gas giants are thought to be many thousands of degrees at their cores, even if their upper atmospheres are extremely cold. The enormous pressures involved are the reasons behind this.

I was talking about surface temperature. Even the Earth is hot at its core.

Some speculate that brown dwarves are hot enough to have an atmosphere where Iron acts very similiarly to water, driving weather patterns in much the same way that water vapor drives weather patterns here on earth. There may even be iron rain. A brown dwarf is not massive enough to initiate fusion, but it is still extraordinarily hot and shines with it's own dim light (albeit many thousand times fainter than the faintest "true" stars).

OH! OH! OH! I KNOW THAT!!! >_< lol The Universe is an awesome show. They need more new episodes though.

The solar system has more mass than most other systems because the sun is actually a relatively large star by cosmic standards. We were all taught growing up that our sun was "average", but this has been proven false since then. Of the 50 closest stars, our sun is the 4th largest. Most binary systems are made up of red/white dwarves, which are relatively low in mass when compared to our sun.

Cool to know, thanks.

You guys have the Clarke reference somewhat wrong. If you read the novel again closely, what you'll notice is that the monoliths compressed Jupiter into an increasingly smaller size, pushing it over the thermal limit to begin fusion. Yes, a small amount of mass was added via the inclusion of the monoliths, but only fractionally.

So then it wouldn't even be a Red Dwarf but something else entirely since it's unnaturally a star even though its too small and massive to be one?

 

[langevrouw]

The answer is of course yes.
much of the mass that was here in the beginning was blown away by the solar wind

many planets that were born around the sun are now gone..

Ejected..

Gas planets too drifted away or fell into the sun..

It was a horrible time for the solar system.. but Earth survived

Barely, as a Mars Size object slammed into it only to create Luna

It was a time of fire... like a second star had been born

Still believe it or not.. when these worlds colided.. there was no sound

Isn't that strange

Any atmosphere present was boiled away

here and at the Mars size object

just imagine.. that planet.. gone for ever now.. was as close to the sun as Earth is.

It was large enough to have an atmosphere...

there might have been oceans .. with signs of first life

there were mountains.. and craters... it was a world on it's own

with clouds and storms.. a whole ecosystem

and than Earth came by and crushed it..

We never think of this.. but it was a horrible event.. not only for the Earth.. but also for the other world.

 

[robnissen]

Any atmosphere present was boiled away

here and at the Mars size object

just imagine.. that planet.. gone for ever now.. was as close to the sun as Earth is.

It was large enough to have an atmosphere...

there might have been oceans .. with signs of first life

there were mountains.. and craters... it was a world on it's own

with clouds and storms.. a whole ecosystem

and than Earth came by and crushed it..

We never think of this.. but it was a horrible event.. not only for the Earth.. but also for the other world.

Doubtful. The solar system was a pretty chaotic place at that time, with most of the planets having a tremendous amount of residual heat. I do not recall whether it is believed that the surface of the earth was molten at that time, but I do believe it was quite hot. In addition, there was intense comet and asteroid bombardment. Also, the two planets probably orbited the sun in close proximity (rather than the second planet being ejected from another orbit and just happened to hit earth like a rifle shot). Thus, there were probably title effects (especially on the smaller non-earth planet), which, together with its residual heat, probably made it very Io like. Probably not the best place for life to attempt to take hold.

 

[Invalid]

Any atmosphere present was boiled away

here and at the Mars size object

just imagine.. that planet.. gone for ever now.. was as close to the sun as Earth is.

It was large enough to have an atmosphere...

there might have been oceans .. with signs of first life

there were mountains.. and craters... it was a world on it's own

with clouds and storms.. a whole ecosystem

and than Earth came by and crushed it..

We never think of this.. but it was a horrible event.. not only for the Earth.. but also for the other world.

Doubtful. The solar system was a pretty chaotic place at that time, with most of the planets having a tremendous amount of residual heat. I do not recall whether it is believed that the surface of the earth was molten at that time, but I do believe it was quite hot. In addition, there was intense comet and asteroid bombardment. Also, the two planets probably orbited the sun in close proximity (rather than the second planet being ejected from another orbit and just happened to hit earth like a rifle shot). Thus, there were probably title effects (especially on the smaller non-earth planet), which, together with its residual heat, probably made it very Io like. Probably not the best place for life to attempt to take hold.

From what I remember it was starting to cool down. Some parts were turning solid but most was still liquid. Life only happened after it cooled the second time. What langevrouw is describing is impossible.