The Sun is dying. A slow death, to be sure, but slowly it creeps towards its end, gradually increasing in luminosity - an effect that will push Earth out of the habitable zone in about a billion years. Can we somehow stop this from happening? Can we save the Earth? Can we save *the Sun*? Join us today as discuss a new research paper from the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, that may help our distant descendants buy themselves billions of years of new life.
Written and presented by Prof David Kipping and Matt Scoggins (Columbia). Special thanks to melodysheep for giving us permission to use their awesome starlifting animations from "Life Beyond 3" ( • LIFE BEYOND 3: In Sea... )
→ Support our research program: www.coolworldslab.com/support
→ Get Stash here! teespring.com/stores/cool-wor...
THANK-YOU to our supporters D. Smith, M. Sloan, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, N. Kildal, Z. Star, E. West, T. Zajonc, C. Wolfred, L. Skov, G. Benson, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, M. Forbes, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, H. Jensen, J. Rockett, N. Fredrickson, D. Holland, E. Hanway, D. Murphree, S. Hannum, T. Donkin, K. Myers, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, J. Black, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, K. Weber, S. Marks, L. Robinson, F. Van Exter, S. Roulier, B. Smith, P. Masterson, R. Sievers, G. Canterbury, J. Kill, J. Cassese, J. Kruger, S. Way, P. Finch, S. Applegate, L. Watson, T. Wheeler, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, E. Dessoi, J. Alexander, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, C. Hays, S. Krasner, W. Evans, D. Bansal, J. Curtin, J. Sturm, RAND Corp., I. Attard, M. Donovan, N. Corwin, M. Mangione, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, G. Genova, R. Provost, B. Sigurjonsson, G. Fullwood, T. Mitchum, B. Walford, J. Boyd, J. Quayle, N. De Haan, R. Crayton, W. Borghei, N. Arc, M. Kay, J. Gillmer & R. Williams.
::References::
► [THIS RESEARCH!] Scoggins, M. & Kipping, D. (2020), Lazarus Stars: Numerical investigations of stellar evolution with star-lifting", submitted to MNRAS: arxiv.org/abs/2210.02338
► Criswell D. R. (1985), Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience, pp 50-87
► Matloff G. L. (2017), Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 70, 458
::More videos::
► "Starlifting" by Isaac Arthur: • Starlifting
► "Watching the End of the World" by Cool Worlds: • Watching the End of th...
::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], Artlist.io, via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (creativecommons.org/licenses/..., or with permission from the artist
► Sid Acharya - Sky Sailing (0:00)
► Joachim Heinrich - Stjärna (1:48)
► Joachim Heinrich - Y (3:29)
► Sid Acharya - Searching for Answers (5:06)
► Kevin MacLeod - Long Note Two (8:13)
► Atlas - Waking Up (10:10)
► Falls - Life in Binary (13:15)
► Sid Acharya - Sky Sailing (16:11)
► Joachim Heinrich - Y (19:15)
► Indive - Trace Correction (21:21)
::Film/TV clips used::
► Interstellar (Paramount Pictures)
► Agora (Focus Features International)
► Dragonheart (Universal Pictures)
► Immortals (Relativity Media)
► Johnny Cash - Hurt (American Recording Studios)
► Noah (Paramount Pictures)
► The Planets (BBC)
► Sunshine (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
► Ad Astra (20th Century Fox)
► The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company)
► Elysium (Sony Pictures Releasing)
► Avengers: Infinity War (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
► Lucy (Universal Pictures)
► Avengers: Endgame (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
► Event Horizon (Paramount Pictures)
► Rubikon (Graf Film)
► The Expanse (Amazon)
► Don't Look Up (Netflix)
► Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (New Line Cinema)
► The Day After Tomorrow (20th Century Fox)
► Dragon's Den (BBC)
► How The Universe Works (Science Channel)
► Man of Steel (Warner Bros. Pictures)
► Prometheus (20th Century Fox)
► Passengers (Sony Pictures Releasing)
► Clara (D Films)
::Chapters::
00:00 Earth's Future
05:26 Moving the Earth
10:47 Starlifting
13:10 Lazarus Stars
16:22 Extreme Starlifting
21:21 Outro & Credits
#Astroengineering #Starlifting #CoolWorlds
Thanks for watching! Some FAQs... 1] Wouldn't stripping mass off the Sun change the Earth's orbit? It depends where the mass is dumped. If it's interior to Earth's orbit then essentially no. But in the wind scenario yes. In that case, you actually don't want the keep the stellar luminosity fixed (isoluminosity), instead you want to keep the irradiation on the Earth (isoirradiance), and the paper presents calculations for both scenarios (it doesn't change the numbers very much). 2] Will humans be around in a billion years?! Almost certainly not. Even if our species persists, it will evolve, splinter off into new species, etc. I've hypothesised in the past that just how life is very difficult to totally eradicate, intelligence too might plausibly persist due to the survival advantages it affords. That may even be an AI of some form of course. Some might not care about survival unless it's literally humanity, but I think that's a narrow view and that we are part of a broader tree of life that we should all be rooting for (sorry for the pun). 3] How could we detect this in another system? I touch on that briefly in the video but its largely unexplored and a topic for another research project to be frank. Hopefully we can tackle this in the future, but check out the paper with some ideas about how this might happen. 4] How exactly does the mass stripping work? We didn't really go into that today, Isaac Arthur's video is definitely worth watching though for more on this! There's at least two plausible ways, stellar winds and mass overflow. Here, we essentially assume some mechanism is mastered and calculate the consequences on the star. We're astronomers so really looking at this from the astrophysics part of it, rather than the engineering side.
Spitballing # 3 a bit: Depending on the starlifting method used, we might be able to select WHICH elements we "lift". For example, we might want to selectively extract "metals", to use for creating a Dyson Swarm or other purposes. Or we might want to extract (and "store") hydrogen for future fuel use - say feeding it back into the sun as it ages, or creating one or more red dwarfs as separate centers of civilization. IF that makes sense for us, it might make sense for other civilizations. I'd imagine such changes in relative abundance in the parent star should be observable spectroscopically. And would stand out as anomalous, when compared to, say, other metrics for determining the age of the star. We could then conduct searches for such anomalous stars.
@@araptuga Pretty sure that was the original application of the idea of starlifting: extracting the heavy metals the star has fused for you. The fact that this would then reduce the star's mass without impacting fusion fuel and thereby extend the lifespan was a secondary benefit. Also, I would LOVE to see you and Isaac Arthur go into a livestream deep dive of HOW we could do this, WHAT it would take, WHAT the impacts would be (like changes to solar luminosity), HOW we could counter those, that kind of thing! One thing I've noticed is that the best sci-fi doesn't just say 'imagine X technology miraculously works' but also 'now imagine it's been part of society for 50 years and everyone's acclimatized to it and there are laws written around it and standard practices and secondary impacts of those that have already been solved for and....'. In essence, cheap sci-fi could propose the automobile, but awesome sci-fi then also proposes speeding tickets, traffic lights, state inspections, auto insurance, and the death of 'walkable cities' while also allowing jobs and residences to get further and further apart. That's the kind of stuff that takes rumination and often multiple minds working together over time to sort out.
It would seem another method of diverting Earth's orbit would be change the angle of interaction between Earth's magnetic field the solar wind. Either by diverting the solar wind or by changing the shape of Earth's magnetic field.
I believe the idea is to somehow electromagnetically pump the material from the poles, thereby reducing the effects of enhanced solar wind. I would imagine they would have the tech to capture the material, make all kinds of water, store all kinds of hydrogen, for later to feed back (just enough) into the star, to sustain hydrogen fusion. My wonder is this, how would the gravity of trillions of large spinning habitats affect the planetary orbits. I believe most of them would be beyond the Earth's orbit and only a small fractional amount used by the star to starlift with, would be really close to the star.
Can't you eject the solar material at the poles?
If stardeath is something all civilizations have to theoretically recon with you'd think detection of unnatural star mass loss would be an intuitive way to detect advanced life in the cosmos.
Right! We’d love to go deeper into detection in the future
very interesting idea, even so for a scifi movie! 😊
This comment makes great sense
My imagination was sparked in that direction as well. I wonder if the prevalence of red dwarfs is what our models expect or if there is a way to assess the age of star against its size and see if there is a mismatch. Im going to have to do some reading. What makes this more exciting is that we have a ton of observations of stars near and far going back decades. As such we would have a good chance of spotting a modified star within those existing observations once we had worked out what to look out for. Awesome stuff! Cheers Paul
Sure, all we have to do is monitor the star for a few hundred thousand years. We're obviously not there yet, but eventually will be.
I ve talked about this channel to friends and strangers sooo much. I love people with such passion about topics such as these . Thank you for the gold you upload every time .
In 100% agreement.
It's all in the delivery. Similar to Isaac Arthur's videos....even a topic you find boring spoken hy Cool Eorkds or Issac....you still get enveloped because of how its delivered to you. May all time fav channel was always original VSauce, but now? Definitely toss up between Cool Worlds and Issac Arthur. I just love how Isaac doesnt say this is what aliens can do or why they must exist...he uses logic and reason to explain IF they do, then this or that.
@@AppNasty Try History of the Universe / History of the Earth too. Amazing channels by the same guy. The delivery is simply amazing.
One could say you shared this with others that “…Love the space and sciences…’? - #WonderfulAnton ❤🛰👋
Does anybody know how you calculate a Stars lifetime?
This ingenious idea of using astroids to move the Earth is one of the coolest idea I've seen for a while. This gave me goosebumps ngl
Amazing narration...natural pacing as if he's really speaking to us and not reading a script. Top notch production.
I really appreciate this channel. For educational material that is actually entertaining. Helps to smother out the flashy disinformation out there. Excellent production and excellent narration by a brilliant professor.
Have you checked a desk? I'm just a regular person in Boston media. Quincy Ma. City of presidents. I fight media wars on a desk. Two men wanted The FakeNewZ. They didnt get it. #Boston2024
I agree. I'm hooked.
I've been obsessed with starlifting ever since Isaac Arthur first introduced it to me. I'm more fascinated by how it could provide all the raw material we will ever need - enough to build a Dyson Sphere without needing to dismantle the rest of the solar system.
Guess you already played Stellaris.
Access to all the resources "we" would ever need wouldn't mean anything for regular folks. Those who have the means to accomplish reaching such a source wouldn't include the general public in sharing the treasure no matter how endless. They don't get to be better than everyone and play games on them like they're toys if they have access to the same stuff
@@doesntmatter4477 yes, it's necessary to advance politically as well as technologically.
It is wild how all my favorite channels somehow end up collaborating. Futurism W Isaac Arthur, Event Horizon W John Michael Godier, CoolWorlds, even Ancient History W Dr. Garrett Ryan got in on the action.
@@doesntmatter4477 Sociologically, it's rather simple. A capitalist society, especially if it is divided into nation states, is not able to sustain the efforts necessary to complete such advanced projects. Humanity needs to be united on the inside to greatly focus on the outside. We need peace, freedom, equality first. No social classes, no money, no serfdom. But a much more collectivist mindset. People tackle such challenges not for their own good, but for humanity in general to be able to persevere. Also, you cannot enforce this. People need to believe in it, otherwise it is impossible. Internal conflicts and wars, revolutions and disagreement and all is in vain. This is one hundred percent impossible in a capitalist society.
This topic has interested me for a while. Thank you for actually doing all the necessary research, publishing a paper, and doing a video on the topic.
This was fun to dive into! The more we learn, the more we realize how the universe might be more malleable than initially assumed
I've often thought about this topic too. I thought of using some kind of magnetic system to transfer mass from the Sun to ignite Jupiter. You could even filter out the gas so it's pure tritium/deuterium to lower the ignition mass. This seams like an all together better solution. It has none of the complications of trying to migrate the orbit of the Earth to Jupiter and the subsequent tidal locking that'd have to happen.
A few questions I have about Starlifting. 1.) Would be possible to extract the denser elements from the Sun instead of the hydrogen in order to further extend the Sun's life. 2.) If the answer to question 1 is yes, could we also send mining ships/drones to extract hydrogen from other stars and bring it back to the Sol System in order to further extend the life of our own Sun?
Great Questions! Read my suggestion, above!
One thing that you didn't mention about red dwarfs is that some of them (all of them?) are thought to be fully convective. If that is the case, then star lifting could then be used to take material off the star, separate the H from the He and then dump the H back on the star, with a little extra to replace what was fused. I would love to see you do some of the math on that. I confess that I haven't yet read the paper so maybe I'm asking for something that has already been done. Either way, great work!!
I love Cool worlds, and I love Isaac Arthur! It's really cool to see your team working off ideas that he's helped popularize! I truly imagine a far flung future where starlifting not only lengthens the lifespan of whatever star we live around at that time, but provides us with ample hydrogen mass for various other mega engineering projects!
I love Asimov's books, before I got ill I would read them at work on night shift. It's a shame Carl Sagan isn't still with us, I'm sure he would have some amazing suggestions. That man brought space to life for me. I watched his show Cosmos as a kid, and I have been fascinated ever since. He was a giant.
When a new Cool Worlds video drops, it automatically becomes a good day. Thank you for some of the BEST content on yt altogether!
You channel is the only one that makes me feel like a kid on Christmas when you drop a video. Dr. Kippling you are an inspiration to young minds around the globe, myself included
Props on the Isaac Arthur shout out. His work on his channel is meticulous, top notch, and eloquently presented. If you don't know about Isaac, you're missing out if you don't check out his KZhead channel content. Like, right now. Also, his continual and transparent on his speech impediment is inspiring. Imagine starting a channel, before he had graphics, that is solely based on vocals with a speech impediment and overcoming it in such a public way. It's been an honor and inspiration watching Isaac's channel over these many years.
I've never had even the slightest problem with his speech impediment. In fact, when I discovered him I just assumed he's from the British Isles and has one of those unique accents they have over there. Never knew he had a speech impediment until I heard him mention it in one of his videos. Isaac's content is one of the most unique and thought provoking ones out here.
There's an amazing game called Outer Wilds which is about stopping the sun exploding in a timeloop that everyone should definitely play. However, there is a lot more to the game than that which I'm not going to spoil and you should just play it without searching anything up to ruin the surprise... it's amazing, this is also a great channel btw your videos are set out in a very interesting way and entertaining 👍
Honestly everyone should play Outer Wilds and no one should have this game spoilt for them. To anyone reading this planning to try this game, play it with patience, take in all the details and enjoy the beautiful game
I couldnt stop falling into that effing black hole at brittle hollow and gave up
@@nothanks9174 Trust me, you'll get a hang of flying, keep going. Its worth it
Dude, this sounds awesome. Thanks! 🙏 Also, in real life this is bs.
@@glyph241 all things are possible with the right size nuclear weapon.
Any Issac Arthur fans here. He did some great videos on Starlifting.
Thanks again Dr David. Your channel is my go to source for knowledge about the cosmos. Please keep ‘em coming. ☮️
Great subject and yet so important. Thank you again for all you do Professor Kipping and Team.
I love your dulcet tones and often go to sleep listening to your lectures, the dreams you create are intense and magical like a guru explaining the universe while i'm floating around the solar system
Excellent science communicator. Fantastic work by all the crew on these production, amazing music too.
This channel is simply a masterpiece. The quality and information presented in this video is outstanding. 5/5!
I have never heard of starlifting before, but I am fascinated! Definitely going to do more research on this. Thanks for introducing ideas that the general public probably don't know about.
When I first stumbled upon your channel I was filled with arguments and questions, now I just shut off my brain and listen and absorb all the information and knowledge like a sponge taking in water. It is oddly healing and calming. Much love ❤️.
Waking up and see that a new cool worlds movie has been posted is like waking up Christmas morning and finding presents under the tree. Keep up the good work. The best part of your movies are always the philosophical questions and the great story narrative.
A brilliant piece, as always. Indeed, an excellent companion to Isaac's outstanding work on SFIA. Thank you.
I am always excited when I see a video from cool worlds, great content!
Your channel is the most inspirational of any I have encountered. I hope it continues for many years to come.
This whole concept of starlifting literally brought a smile to my face. The fact that there exists an educational program that allows students to dive head first into these sorts of ideas makes me even happier! MAN what I would give to have that choice 🙌🏻😩
Science & Futurism with Issac Arthur is one of my favorite channels. Great to see you guys are friendly. That's oddly satisfying haha.
This channel goes so deep into the details, so much to learn and in same time your voice and foremost way of speaking really soothes me, poetry and it catches my imagination, relaxing and so on, only 4 ppl makes me feel this way, you, allan watts, carl sagan and brian cox(partly) thanks for this channel
You should take a look into John Godier’s channel Event Horizon. He has very interesting and thought provoking conversations with great knowledgeable guests including a few with this man Dr. Kipping himself, which are my favorites. Check it out.
This KZhead channel has become my favorite and anyone with whom I've shared a link has also agreed the content provided by Cool Worlds is superb. I was never very good in math and failed physics in high school but I do appreciate the work of all astronomers and physicists. The orbital perspective they've helped to develop should be embraced as it links all of humanity to our place in the wider and truly grand cosmos. Keep up the good work!
Simply blown away by the depth of knowledge, paired with an incredible ability to weave together a beautiful and inspiring narrative and production! Thank you!!
Thank you for your continued, inspiring videos, each video is so well made and warmly delivered. You have so many great ideas and Columbia university are lucky to have you. I would love to see more about the starlifting theory and how Isaac might think a civilisation such as ours could get started on this task. If you can double the life cycle of our star or prevent it from becoming a red giant indefinitely, by lifting, you might just go down in the history books for being the ones that worked it all out.
Im just an average guy,average job,average intelligence,but i tell you what.This channel just does it for me.Literally blows me away.Everytime i watch these i feel my IQ has gone through the roof.Why cant media focus on stuff like this.The world would sure be a better place.
I absolutely love the shout out to Isaac's channel. I love his content and have been watching his channel since his 3rd episode. His and your channels are the ones I recommend to people more than any other.
This channel should be added to educational curriculums ❤️
the ideas presented on this channel are mindblowing. hands down the best astro channel. ever.
Hi Matt! Thanks for discussing your research topic! Very interesting! 🎉❤
Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom.! I loved it, you guys are awesome!
Fascinating video! Easily one of my favorite channels for astronomy!
More and more this channel is verging into the realm of Isaac Arthur, and showing us just how thin and blurry the difference between 'what is right now' and 'what could be in the future' really is. I love it! Also, could you extend the life of our own star to trillions of years at constant luminosity by consistently lifting heavier elements and replacing the same mass with hydrogen and helium? For a first effort, you could disassemble Jupiter, but I assume you'd quickly run out and end up harvesting gasses from other stars and extra-solar gas giants. Of course, all of this begs the question, by the time we have the technology and resources to do ANY of this (which will likely be well within the timeframe of the Sun's lifespan at least), would we even need to? Forget the 'we could go elsewhere' idea, but simply would we be fighting with our own waste-heat on Earth so much that we could abandon the Sun entirely, grow everything under our own artificial light (growlamps or small orbital suns or whatever) and use the waste heat of our own technology to warm the Earth, being careful to keep enough off-planet to not OVER-heat things? That, and how much of humanity will still be on Earth at that point, and how much will be in self-sustaining space colonies in the Asteroid Belt, among Jupiter's moons, or elsewhere? All great questions that we don't yet have answers to, and likely won't until those are THE BIG PROBLEMS OF THE DAY in several thousand years.
I dont think it'll be thousands at the rate of a.i. growth...
I have watched a few of your vids and now i'm hooked. Thank you . You got my sub .
I've learned so much and I love sharing this info with anyone who listens.
This is my favorite channel on KZhead. Your content is CRIMINALLY underrated with 1/100,000th of the subscribers you deserve. Every episode is fulfilling on so many levels, and this one did not disappoint. Thank you for all the time you spend putting these videos together that we see, and do not see. Thank you
Who all wants a follow-up vid with Matt?! 👍 Proposed topic for follow-up vid with Matt: How does the sun’s gravitational pull on the Earth correlate to its decreased luminosity in the Extreme Starlifting scenario? Plus, how do we buy Cool Worlds “Extreme Starlifter” T-shirt merch? 😊
Love both ideas!!
I’ll second that motion!
First heard about starlifting as a concept last year and mentioned it to my son only a few days ago, thinking he already knew of it. Surprised that he didn't - so will be sharing this video with him. He'll be fascinated and it might well be another of our discussed topics when next we're star-watching one night. Thank you for this, and thanks to your student for his clear explanation.
Superb. Thank you to all involved.
I love this content, keep it up 👍😀
Thanks so much!
@@CoolWorldsLab and thank you! You and your whole team!
Fascinating video about the work your team is doing. It seems the time required to make starlifting a reality and the cost and technical hurdles needed to be overcome suggests we may likely develop the technological breakthroughs needed to allow humanity to find and reach new suitable worlds in a more cost effective way. The material and financial resources needed for this project will hardly be available from a continually depleted Earth suggesting we’d need to already significantly progressed in exploiting the material resources of our solar system. As such, if we need to conceive of currently unimagined technologies to make the starlifting a reality, shouldn’t we similarly extend our conceptual abilities to those currently unimagined technologies that allow us to become a multi stellar civilization?
Professor Kippings continue the good work at Cool Lab.You are insanely Creative and Awesomely Wonderful.
Great discussion, Dr. Kipping!
Amazing video. I really like this idea and how you are working on this.
As part of a thought experiment for the final method of moving earth inward. Would it then be possible to attempt a cosmic dance of sorts where earth and Venus switch places. With the run away green house effect on Venus would it then possibly cool off over millions of years and essentially terraform itself? Assuming it was even possible to move both planets safely past one another.
Life has a better chance of finding another star to cling to than 2 planets switching orbits in the Solar System. It would completely destabilize the rest of the inner planets, creating a planetary cosmic shooting gallery that would end up destroying earth anyway. CWL are some of the brightest minds in astro-science, they would've thought about this option if it was feasible. But at least you are thinking and that is what science is about. 👍🏻
It'd be tricky to get them to switch places, since you'd basically have to make their orbits way more elliptical in the process. But you could push them into a much tighter configuration with narrower orbital separation, such that Earth, Mars, and Venus all exist in some future habitable zone and are stable for billions of years. Even Mercury could be pushed into a more stable configuration.
You can't switch planet orders, because when their orbits gets too close to each other, they'll either eventually smash into each other or one would kick the other off into interstellar space. When you move Earth inwards, I imagine you have to move both Mercury and Venus inwards as well in order to not make any of them come too close to each other.
You would just need to rotate one of the orbital planes 90 degrees and make them temporary 'orbital locked' to get them past each other. Sounds doable to me.
Before we can save the earth from the sun, we first must save us from ourselves
😔
Yup 😢
If knowledge is power, then with great intelligence comes great responsibility. Which I haven't seen many demonstrate
@@hououinkyouma5539 true, steins gate fan?
Outstanding as always. Thank you.
this channel is pure gold. so glad i found it.
Can we detect stars which have been manipulated for extended lifetime by advanced civilizations? It might be possible they have some unique signatures to be spotted
We’d need some way to track stars for long periods of time (hundreds of millions of years) to notice any difference
"Can we save the sun?" asked the animal rapidly laying conditions for its own extinction.
Serious i can listen to you explain the universe for houres. After a long stress full day it really helps to relax.
What about a Starshade? Wouldn't solve the whole swallowed by the sun issue, but might buy a billion years or so 🙂
That was my first thought also. Sounds a lot easier and less dangerous than moving the planet
@@tinetannies4637 but a helluva lot less fun!
Is it possible for stars to sustain fusion with a measurably smaller mass than it takes to get fusion started? If so, wouldn't that be one way to look for stars that have been modified by a host civilization?
Hyopthetically? Yes. Tritum-Deuterium Fusion (what our few fusion test reactors fuse, as well as larger Brown Drawf 'failed stars' briefly fuse) can be crammed into a smaller star. But if you have that much tririum just... lying around, you'll probably opt to use it in artificial reactors in habitats where it's more efficient. No society that has that much lying around is going to lack that tech. Seeing a galaxy rapidly redden over several centuries instead of melina would be a techno-signature of a civilization taking all of that precious hydrogen to use themselves, though
In essence yes because its really a need to avoid the interior cooling below the threshold for electron degeneracy pressure to take over and stabilize against the inward pull of gravity. This means that there isn't a hard mass cut off per say as the formation timescale and efficiency of cooling under a coalescing protostar also matter for the initiation of the main sequence. The question of whether you could use that to engineer a star below the mass cut off is a more difficult question as there is a critical phase transition between the lower mass fully convective M dwarfs which are sufficiently cool in their interiors for atoms to hold onto some electrons and the fully ionized radiative regime. (In the case of stars like our Sun the transition to the convective regime is determined by the point where the temperature drops enough for first recombination but by using asteroseismology to gain a better understanding about the interior structure of actual stars there does appear to be additional dynamics at play which complicate this process blurring the boundary between the radiative and convective regimes that we don't fully understand. The fluid dynamics of charged matter involved in either case are complicated and chaotic disregarding the circumstances of a phase transition so its definitely a non trivial situation to address if you can cross a star back into the fully convective regime. *technically for completeness I feel I should mention there is actually another type of stellar convection layer internal to the radiative zone for high mass stars driven by extreme intensity of the catalyzed CNO cycle in but this is totally useless for life extension as the same conditions which drive it lead to the stars burning through their hydrogen fuel in short order as it requires extremely high temperatures. For example WNh stars are the main sequence analogs of the most massive monsters among stars in our modern universe and they only last a few million years despite being fully convective simply due to both extreme mass loss rates and extreme rates of fusion. The sun has a tiny bit of CNO cycle fusion in its core and the increased temperature in the Sun's core will eventually around 9 billion years of age lead to this process taking over in the Sun's core which will dramatically speed up the rate which the Sun's remaining fuel is used up if nothing is done to stop it.
@@Dragrath1 Thanks. Sounds like there won't be a definitive answer in our lifetime regarding the phase transition, as I'd assume experiments with fusion here on earth can't really address the question and it'll be a "while" before we can start experimenting with real stars. And thus my second question becomes meaningless, since by that time we'll probably know if there's someone out there.
I was waiting for new video to drink my tea with! Thank you so much
12:56 There's something beautiful about that idea, the parent giving the child life and then the child giving the parent life too. Almost makes me wanna tear up.
fascinating idea of saving the sun with star lifting. I do have a question, gravitational pull is directly related to mass of stellar objects, so wouldn't slowly removing/syphoning off the mass of the sun slowly reduce its gravitational pull? is it so minuscule that it has no effect on the orbits of the planets? or is there a limit that eventually the earth begins to slowly speed off from the sun, its velocity being enough to overcome the balance of velocity and gravity that creates orbits? or am I simply misunderstanding gravity and the orbits of planets?
If the mass is kept interior to the Earths orbit then there’s no change, but if it’s blown out as a wind then there is a small change in the orbits and we discuss this in the paper
@@CoolWorldsLab Aha! Here’s the answer to my question in my comment. Following up on this in a future vid, perhaps with Matt, would help to detail this effect. 😄
Could star lifting have a significant effect on gravitational effect sun has on solar system? I'm wondering if alteration to our suns mass wouldn't require corrections in earth's orbit?
It depends where the mass is transferred to. If it’s interior to Earth’s orbit, then no effect. But with a wind based process there would be a small adjustment to Earth’s orbit, and we discuss this in the paper
Yes small effect if expelled as a wind (discussed in our paper), or no effect is kept interior to Earth’s orbit. We introduce the idea of isoluminosity and isoirradiance to account for these two scenarios.
I just want to say thank you for all your work. You are one of the people that understand that scientist need to constantly communicate directly with the general public and not leave science achievements interpretation to non scientists.
Brilliant. Love it. Thanks for the inspiration 🌌
Que privilegio y placer mas tremendo el tener la oportunidad de ver tus programas en youtube profesor !!!.... Comparto tus pasiones y vibro con cada episodio !!!... Te agradezco una vez mas por todo tu trabajo !! 🙌 Saludos amigo !!!
So if draining mass from the sun creates visible signs of modification (ie: a star too small for its measured luminosity) then presumably we could detect if other civilizations have done this as well, right? I'm not usually an alien guy but this seems fairly plausible as a method to detect alien civilizations via their own engineered stars. Never mind you beat me to it haha
As fusion rates diminish, the luminosity should quickly fall to match the new fusion rate. There should be a small delay, but the change in luminosity is so small on a human timescale that we might not be able to detect it at all, even with some fancy future tech. It might require billions of years of constant monitoring to detect the change and there are many natural processes that can take mass from stars, so there is no telling if a change is natural or technological.
I love your channel and information! Thank you!!!
Mate! G'day from Australia!!! Keep up the vids! Loving them all! The old and the new! Told so many of my mates about ya! Take it easy 🤙🤙
Maybe we need call Supergirl
Good evening from Slovakia. Thank You for the video, I find this format very appealing. as an amateur astronomer and physicist I was long contemplating about creation of a magnetic "conveyor belt" to store the extracted mass for use in the outer solar system as a fuel there or for the future "re - dump" into the sun, so our descendants might prepare such "solar system" infrastructure. Still it surprises me, how lucky we are to live by such a versatile "size" of a star our Sun is.
I just recently found this channel, and I love Cool Worlds! much love and respect!
Such calm videos...rich in knowledge ❤
Gold content as always!! A video on the mind bending concept of black holes and it's concept would be appreciated.
I'm watching from Romenia.I like how he narrates,an how hi puts his soul into life,and the desire for life to exist in other places in this vast Universe.
Wonderful video today buddy, thank you for sharing 💖
Really interesting video! These are great ideas and a useful conversation. I wonder what options will become available in a thousand years.
Good afternoon David. Looking forward to this.
Thanks for being early!
Always a pleasure when the notification appears ! Good job ! ;)
This is the baddest channel on KZhead very very interesting I could sit here and listen to this guy all day and all night long it's so interesting thank you.
Interesting video, it really makes you think, and I'm glad you the some clips from Sunshine such a great, underrated movie.
Well, you did it again. You blew my mind.
wow you and your students are brilliant people your videos are always easy to understand, also for people who are interested in astro physics but had not the luck of going to university thank you good sir
I discovered that "obscure" 1985 Criswell book a few years after it was published, in the Minneapolis Public Library, of all places. I later ordered it and read it through again, after I finished my grad school work in 1994. Fantastic work, and not just for starliftng. If you can find it, read it.
Yoo mate, thanks for the new vid. Always a pleasure.
Thanks for catching it early!
As well as Isaac Arthur's channel, everyone should certainly go find your Watching the End of the World video. It's one of the most moving things I've seen on KZhead. It's lovely to think we could prolong the lives of our planet and our star.
I love these videos with the passion every time I watch these videos I always go outside and look at the stars wonder of the worlds beyond please don't ever stop making these videos I'm here for the long run 👍👍👍👍
Stellar Performance... 🌞
Please never stop! I love Cool Worlds!
So cheery. 😅 I wonder how ‘life’ would feel as something like this takes place. Very intriguing!
The video quality on this channel is next level
Thank you for the video.
It is videos like this that makes this channel the best on KZhead
The short answer is: Yes, we could. With the Right tools. A strange, immaginitive idea occured to me. Part of the reason the Sun enters the Red Giant phase - has to do with the Core. It gets denser, and more metalic with age. The Dense Core ends up hastening the Stars' Shortened Life Span. Remove that By-product - say with a strong Magnetic Beam - and jettison it into the Oort region.
Wow ! It's not often I learn something quite this big - it happens, but not often ! Thanks :-)
Hands down the best channel on KZhead.
What I love about your videos is the way in which you're explaining everything. Despite not knowing aanything about astronomy, I learned so much after watching your videos. Story telling is your super power so I can't help but ask. Could you please make a video or series of videos where you explain how the Universe works? I didn't even knew there are no other stars outside of our own for another 4 light years, nor did I know what a star really is and what makes planets planets. But after watching your videos, I realized all these things. I would love to learn more. Perhaps tell us other basic but interesting things. Like what are solar winds, what made the Sun become a star and not a planet, how does Earths magnetic fields works and what causes them etc etc. I'd love to learn anything about our Universe, distances, traveling, potential star systems that could support life etc. Keep making astronomy easily understandable and enjoyable to learn! about
Excellent video - thanks! Presumably s super civilization that undertook such a challenge could also arrange for the moon to be moved at the same time, and would probably have to do adjust all the other planets to maintain stability too...
I find the idea of humanity altering stars to be the ultimate hubris. Hopefully we survive ourselves long enough to get there!