Igniting a Gas Giant

[robject]

People who read 2010: Odyessey 2 remember the ignition of Jupiter into a little star, amazingly rendering several of its moons habitable.

At what tech level could this be done? And how might it be accomplished?

I was thinking about the "horrible primary star" problem that many Imperial worlds seem to have, and assume that in some cases terraforming could be performed to make a world habitable.

But if one of the gas giants could be ignited, well, that could allow mainworlds to exist far from the primary. I guess this is also the near-companion-star concept.

I'm thinking this is would require a Yaskoydray-level of technology -- in the form of a cool one-use artifact, not unlike the Star Trigger -- but I'm not sure.

Just wondering what y'all's thoughts are on the matter.

 

[Ptah]

I tend to make such technology in the CT TL18-19 range. To me, a TL where such is possible but the society has such power to modify individuals that these societies are often more concerned with "ascension" or understanding the "true" nature of the universe that terraforming systems that there is little interest or need to terraform except on a case by case basis.

 

[Scott Martin]

a Lower tech (and more cost effective) solution would be to build orbital archologies, and park them in the hab zone. (in theory we could do this now) Stars are pretty "inefficient" power sources, since they radiate power in all directions: if you have anything near efficient fusion you may be better off (in terms of total usable power output) to use the GG to power fusion plants.

Of course if you have the tech to ignite the GG in the first place you probably have the tech to build a dyson sphere around it. I believe that Jupiter shows evidence of low-level nuclear activity, but is not massive enough to "ignite". Unfortunately I can't remember where this stuck in my long-term memory.

Igniting a GG would probably require either:
1) Inducing a higher gravitational field
or
2) Pushing a couple of GG's together (Build your own fusion rocket with a GG)

Howard Taylor (of Schlock Mercenary) had a nice piece on how to do this in one of his earlier comics. If you haven't heard of Schlock Mercenary, run, do not walk to www.schlockmercenary.com the next time you have an uninterrupted day or two. Do not hit this link at work if you have anything that needs to be accomplished there this week.

Scott Martin

 

[mike wightman]

How about a combination of focussing superTL repulsors from several directions around the gas giant, and then applying a huge superTL nuclear damper in its "enhance strong nuclear force" node mode?

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

There is an excellent chapter in Robert Zubrin's book Entering Space about igniting stars. He suggests using Hawking black holes and just dropping them into the centers of target gas giants. The zone of fusion will form a layer above the black hole and burn for a few million years. I wish I could say that I had the math to support this and give details about it, but I don't. I'd put this at about the same tech level as creating a Rosette. About TL 20-21.

 

[Gnusam Netor]

I still think there would be trouble, from a terraform aspect, when a GG is "ignited" though. If you take Jupiter for example, she has a pretty massive magnetic field, and that won't go away even if she is shinier then today.

Nothing a good Monolith can't deal with i'm sure, but still, any emerging atmosphere on Europa (to continue 2010) would be washed away, *woosh* quick.

Shiny and sparkly seems to go hand in hand when it comes to big lumps of Hydrogen.

 

[robject]

Good point Gnusam.

And, of course, the winning point goes to Scott: just build orbital arcologies in the hab zone. Attach them to planetoids. Build them from the asteroid belt. Etc.

With efficient fusion you can do wonders.