Should we nuke the sun to help prevent global warming?

Question

Should we nuke the sun to help prevent global warming?

Answer 1

Might work as well as most of our other "non-solutions".

Answer 2

Nuking the Sun would heat it up more, not reduce the heat it generates.  However, our current nuke supply wouldn't amount to much, and such a plan would get rid of our nuke supply, which might be a win in the long term.

Reducing the Sun's output is an extremely difficult problem.  I doubt any usable physics is in the reach of our current technology.

But reducing the Sun's energy on the Earth is another thing.  One proposal is to launch a fleet of satellites to orbit the Sun/Earth L1 point between the Earth and the Sun.  This very large fleet would deflect some of the Sun's light away from the Earth.  It would be expensive, but near term technology could make it possible.

A longer term technology is to move the orbit of the Earth farther away from the Sun.  This can be done by getting a fairly big asteroid to perform a figure 8 between the Earth and Jupiter.  Basically, this steals some orbital energy from Jupiter and gives it to the Earth.  So as the Sun heats up, the Earth gets farther out, and stays cooler.

In the very short term, the easiest solution is to reverse the current build up of carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere to reduce the greenhouse effect. Again, in the short term, nuclear reactors might help, but the easiest thing to do is use less energy.  That can be done through greater efficiency.  A car that gets 70 MPG is better than one that gets 30 MPG.  A house that is well insulated uses less energy than one that doesn't.  This isn't difficult or expensive, and can pay for itself.

Answer 3

Great idea, seeing we are totally dependent on the sun for survival...

Answer 4

I once did a calculation based on using every possible nuclear weapon we have on Earth plus all fissile material (e.g., nuclear plant fuel) that could be turned into a bomb.

I wanted to know if we could blow up the Moon.

Turns out that if we could use the entire energy available in all the nuclear weapons and other fissile materials (including the fuel used for electricity production), at 100 % efficiency (all energy going exclusively into pushing Moon soil upwards) we would not even be able to remove a 4 foot layer form the surface of the Moon -- never mind the whole Moon.

And nuclear weapons have a very poor "efficiency" rating: they liberate barely 4% (or less) of the available nuclear energy.  And most of that would go into turning rocks to rubble; l very little energy left to lift any of it to escape speed.  The 4 feet is suddenly down to much less than one millimetre (1/25 of an inch).

It would be a nice distraction, but not an efficient one.

The mass of the Sun is 27 million times the mass of the Moon.  As the kids used to say: "you do the math."

The Sun produces energy by fusion of hydrogen into helium.  The difference in mass from 4 hydrogen atoms to 1 helium atom is what gets transformed into energy.

This is equivalent to 4 million tonnes per second.

Four million.

Tonnes.

Imagine the  E = m c^2   from that.

At best, if we did get these nukes to go off, maybe, perhaps, some very sophisticated equipment could measure the fact that something happened.

However, I suspect that with the high temperature, most detonation systems would fail, the containment would also fail and we'd end up with a ring of radioactive material in a close orbit around the Sun, providing alien species with an indication of the kind of people we really are.

Mind you, I think that they deserve the warning.

Answer 5

It may be that solar flares or unusually high cosmic ray activity is responsible for the phenomenon known as "dry lightning" which ignited all of the 800+ fires in California, a tragedy which is unfolding right before our very eyes.   It all started when 6,000 to 8,000 lightning strikes--over a 24 hour period--hit a tinder dry forest, stoking an unprecedented number of smaller fires. "Dry" lightning means that the water or rain, which normally accompanies a thunderstorm, evaporates before it hits the ground, so there is no rain to snuff out any fires which may have started.

What's worse is that the combustion byproducts of all fires, water vapor and CO2, just perpetuate this vicious cycle. That's because super saturated clouds and wet soil create the perfect conditions for lightning strikes due to the electrical potential (+/-). We must not forget that water vapor and CO2 are the 2 primary byproducts of combustion of all fuels, and also of aerobic respiration (think of all the animals respiring...).

Combustion:

Butane C4H10 + 6.5 O2 --> 4 CO2 + 5 H2O

Aerobic Respiration:

C6H12O6 + oxygen --> 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + energy

Write or petition your space agency to offload excess water to the moons and Mars by shipping clean bottled water to other globes.

Ban cigarette smoking altogether since butane and cigarette combustion  byproducts add water vapor, CO2 and smog to the atmosphere.

Whenever possible, use electrical cooking appliances at home.

Demand that Mars, and every moon deemed habitable in our solar system, is terraformed and bioformed to create magnetic fields and atmospheres.  There are over 160+ moons that need magnetic fields to shield out cosmic rays.

Answer 6

What is Earth's ideal temperature?

Since I know you don't have an answer for that, then why should global warming be prevented?

Instead of adapting to the change of our surroundings (like nearly every other species on the planet), we have the audacity to try to mold A PLANETARY ECOSYSTEM and control phenomena for which we have little understanding just to avoid adaptation.

Let me know how that works for you...

Answer 7

I doubt that the Sun would notice; solar output is equal to the detonation of every nuclear weapon on Earth every fraction of a second.

Answer 8

while the sun is probably responsible to some degree for the global warming here and on every other planet, nuking it would be pointless as it would have absolutely no effect.

Answer 9

Pretty sure we'd all die if we did that r****d...

Answer 10

you are a ******* idiot!