Second Suns and Planets X

July 25, 2008 10:37 AM

Second Sun? Not in my solar backyard! The so far successful Cassini-Huygens Mission has been extended by two years, but we can rest easy knowing that if NASA ever scraps the probe by sending it into Saturn's heart, the end result will not be a redundant Sun. After all, Galileo took a programmed header into Jupiter back in September 2003 and we're all still alive, right? But for some, that's not enough to disprove the biggest conspiracy of all time: Project Lucifer STARCHILD!!! [Cue Soundtrack Music]

And if a human-engineered Second Sun is just too ludicrous, don't worry. The Internet has several Heavenly Bodies of Doom, each one ready and waiting to destroy Earth. There's Nemesis, The 12th Planet, The Red Persona, Nibiru (and the Anunnaki), and my favorite of them all, Planet X. (Previously: Cassini, Project Lucifer)

posted by grabbingsand (39 comments total)

From the STARCHILD link:
I've heard a lot about this. It seems the Reptilians have something to do with it.

My irony gauge broke a while back, but the comment above is brilliant regardless of intent.
posted by monocultured at 11:01 AM on July 25, 2008

> Still, the way a star creates fusion (electrical z-pinch effect) might not be applicable to creating a artificial fusion effect, i mean, the H-bomb doesn't use the z-pinch effect and still works.
posted by ryanrs at 11:05 AM on July 25, 2008

All these worlds are yours...yadda yadda
posted by mkb at 11:06 AM on July 25, 2008

Viral advertising for the next X-Files film.
posted by never used baby shoes at 11:06 AM on July 25, 2008

Does Planets X only produce suns? Seems evolutionally unviable.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:08 AM on July 25, 2008

Someone ought to tell the poor fools that H-Bombs are indeed electrical z-pinch devices. There's no hydrogen inside, they're filled with lithium! Like giant atomic laptop batteries.
posted by ryanrs at 11:10 AM on July 25, 2008

Yes, the batshitinsane tag applies.

It's not like Saturn can be set afire with a freaking match, you know. Enormous meteors hit both planets all the time; remember Shoemaker-Levy hitting Jupiter? Jupiter didn't light up from that, people.....

The reason the Sun burns and Saturn doesn't is very simple: the Sun is bigger. A lot bigger. So the pressures are so high in the center that fusion happens in the core, emitting huge amounts of heat and light.

You could throw probes at Saturn for the next hundred thousand years without having much effect. The only way to 'ignite' Saturn would be to make it bigger. A LOT bigger. I'd have to look up the critical mass figures, but I suspect the only way either gas giant would start fusion would be if we slammed them together. If any of these folks would like to talk about how we're going to move a gas giant around in the solar system, I'm all ears.

It would also be exceptionally stupid, because the additional heat input would cook us. And even if some mad scientist thought that would be okay, the ignition of a star might be a very chaotic, destructive, and unpredictable process, meaning we could be blasted by early radiation pulses before the new sun settled down into some kind of stable configuration.

In three words: no freaking way.
posted by Malor at 11:15 AM on July 25, 2008

If we had the ability to turn Saturn into a star, we would probably already have the ability to turn a baseball into a star. Why go so far away when we could stay home and do the same thing?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:19 AM on July 25, 2008

Project Lucifer STARCHILD!!!

My least favourite phase of Bowie's career.
posted by GuyZero at 11:19 AM on July 25, 2008 [3 favorites]

More like Planet X...PRESS!
posted by DU at 11:20 AM on July 25, 2008

I thought about adding in a handful of 2012 theories, but I figured that pole shift and pole reversal would be a little over the top.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:20 AM on July 25, 2008

Saturn's far away, Malor. About 10 AU. We could survive the heat of Saturn's fusion (initiated by fissioning the heavy metal core).
posted by ryanrs at 11:26 AM on July 25, 2008

All these humans are yours, except the conspiracy fools. Attempt no matings there.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:26 AM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Aha, I see they've pre-refuted me:

Oh, please. That is not how a star works. A star creates fusion on its surface with the eclectic z-pinch effect. A star is power by electric forces. Stop repeating this outdated mainstream idea and do some research, even if it means you have to learn your high school electrical physics all over again.

Apparently they don't even know what electric fields look like. If that happened, there would be bands of fusion across the surface of the sun, not the uniform distribution we see.

Magnetic fields aren't smooth; that's the biggest reason we're finding it impossible to create fusion here on Earth. We can't control the plasma, because no matter how complex we get our magnetic fields, the plasmas find holes, get out, and touch the sides of the container, instantly cooling them below fusion temperature.

We can't make a 'z-pinch' work under the most controlled of conditions here on Earth. How are we supposed to remotely set off an entire planet with uniform 'z-pinches' over its entire surface? And why would we do that when controlled fusion would make anyone who could invent it impossibly, obscenely wealthy, without ever leaving home?

I wonder whether this is a deliberate hoax, or whether people actually believe it.

On preview:

Saturn's far away, Malor. About 10 AU. We could survive the heat of Saturn's fusion (initiated by fissioning the heavy metal core).

Considering how much trouble we're having with warming as it is, adding another heat input would strike me as a very bad idea. And it would take thousands of years before the new star settled down and became stable, assuming it was indeed stable over the long term. The Solar System could be a very unpleasant place to be for a few millennia.
posted by Malor at 11:30 AM on July 25, 2008

Malor: The reason the Sun burns and Saturn doesn't is very simple: the Sun is bigger. A lot bigger. So the pressures are so high in the center that fusion happens in the core, emitting huge amounts of heat and light.

"Oh, please. That is not how a star works. A star creates fusion on its surface with the eclectic z-pinch effect. A star is power by electric forces. Stop repeating this outdated mainstream idea and do some research, even if it means you have to learn your high school electrical physics all over again." -EMF

Malor: I'd have to look up the critical mass figures, but I suspect the only way either gas giant would start fusion would be if we slammed them together.

The estimates I've read require about 80 Jupiter mass objects before you can get a star.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:32 AM on July 25, 2008

I could not be so confident in my assertions if it were not for the additional key research of Jacco van der Worp, a Netherlands physicist, and former NASA Consultant, Richard C. Hoagland.

Hoagland, widely known as the chief proponent of the Face on Mars silliness. Looks like he's affiliated himself with another hallmark of pseudo-scientific loopiness.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 11:37 AM on July 25, 2008

Sweet, I'm totally naming my band The Eclectic Z-Pinch. It'll be a fusion band, naturally.
posted by adamdschneider at 11:39 AM on July 25, 2008 [3 favorites]

Note, I'm not agreeing with EMF by any means, just highlighting that the analysis Universe Today uses based on our theoretical understanding of Saturn, fusion, and fission is probably not going to convince people who believe that part of the conspiracy is that physicists have been distributing disinformation in order to avoid saying, "we were wrong."
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:41 AM on July 25, 2008

We could survive the heat of Saturn's fusion (initiated by fissioning the heavy metal core).

Um, fissioning the heavy metal core would not make Saturn fuse. Even if it some how generated enough X-ray power to initiate an H-Bomb style fusion reaction, Saturns mass is too small for it to sustain fusion. The reaction would blow its fuel out into space. Since it isn't big enough, gravity wouldn't hold it in close enough to have sustainable fusion.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:56 AM on July 25, 2008

Wow, 24 posts tagged with "doom."
posted by Ironmouth at 11:58 AM on July 25, 2008

Wait -- this is the same ill-educated nutball who was pushing his crazed agenda on the Philly craigslist! (It was the use of "sheeple" in the video that gave it away.) He'd go on and on about "Saturn ignition." Haven't seen him there in a few months; I thought he'd been so thoroughly ridiculed that he gave it up.

Guess not!
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:00 PM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: It seems the Reptilians have something to do with it.
posted by sour cream at 12:01 PM on July 25, 2008

Looking over these sites, there seems to be a lot of books on these subjects.

Is there anyone else who feels like cobbling together one of these just for shits and giggles? We need a neat sounding theory, pseudo-science, someone who looks like a senior professor and a good conspiracy blurb on the cover.

Any takers? Have mock-mockumentaries been done to death? Can we make money off of it?
posted by monocultured at 12:06 PM on July 25, 2008

It'll be a fusion band, naturally.

At least until you break apart and do solo work.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:27 PM on July 25, 2008 [2 favorites]

He'd go on and on about "Saturn ignition."

Being crazy, maybe he's really just having trouble starting his car and is a bit confused.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:27 PM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUR-WHAT? THEY DID? HUH. GUESS THAT EXPLAINS THE DEFINITION OF 'APE' IN THIS EARTH DICTIONARY. WHAT'S THAT? YEAH, THE SELF-AWARENESS IS SURPRISING, BUT IT HASN'T HELPED THEM FIX THEIR OTHER PROBLEMS.

UH, AHEM. ANYWAY. YOU GUYS SUCK.
posted by invitapriore at 12:35 PM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Malor: We can't make a 'z-pinch' work under the most controlled of conditions here on Earth.

Sandia's Z Machine anticipates making shot #1834 next Thursday. They have an online data thingy that lets you look at the results from previous shots, but not much (immediately obvious) detail about what the data mean.

Not that there's any shortage of arguments against electrically-induced fusion on the surface of the sun.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:40 PM on July 25, 2008

Is there anyone else who feels like cobbling together one of these just for shits and giggles?

BP Amoco is planning to release the methane hydrate beds along the Atlantic continental shelf in order to boil the oceans and transform the atmosphere into one more suited for their hyper-intelligent plant overlords! The only way to prevent this is to abandon the petro-dollar and revert to bimetalism! Ron Paul knew this and was silenced through a campaign of disinformation and ridicule!

DO YOUR RESEARCH!

How's that for you?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:42 PM on July 25, 2008 [2 favorites]

Mr TheWhiteSkull Sir, I believe that you have great things to offer man- & reptiliankind, and should not waste your talent on the sheep that graze these blue pages. The capital letters especially are a nice touch and prove your integrity.

Could we take turns and write one section and get a semblance of a book out of it? There are similar projects (I'm thinking of more serious collective writing things) which could be modelled on.
posted by monocultured at 12:54 PM on July 25, 2008

I haff experimented vit z-pinch effect, und ze fraulein vas most upset vit me.
posted by quin at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2008 [6 favorites]

ALL UR SPACE R BELONG 2 US
posted by grateful at 1:14 PM on July 25, 2008

fantabulous timewaster says: Sandia's Z Machine anticipates making shot #1834 next Thursday.

If you'll note, that means that shots 1 through 1,833 all failed. :)
posted by Malor at 1:37 PM on July 25, 2008

What, failed to destroy the world? You've obviously never been to Albuquerque. They're making grand progress.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 1:53 PM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have, in fact, been to Albuquerque, though that facility probably didn't exist at the time.

What I mean is: they don't have controlled fusion working there yet either. "Making grand progress" is wonderful, and I'm thrilled to hear it... but it also means they're not there yet.

If they can't yet make it work reliably in a lab, they're certainly not going to make it work remotely on Saturn. :)

As an aside, this work is very possibly the single most important thing in the entire world. I'm dead serious. Working, reliable fusion power will be the biggest change for humanity since the invention of fire. That sounds like hyperbole, but it truly isn't.
posted by Malor at 2:20 PM on July 25, 2008

Um, fissioning the heavy metal core would not make Saturn fuse.

Well, no.
posted by ryanrs at 4:16 PM on July 25, 2008

If you'll note, that means that shots 1 through 1,833 all failed.

Kind of like Preparations A through G.
posted by jtron at 4:52 PM on July 25, 2008 [2 favorites]

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN KUBRICK'S 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER SATURN

Actually, it would be kinda cool - a mini-sun with a ring! Why don't we build a Dyson sphere around it before it goes boom, and run a long extension cord back to solve the energy crisis?
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:34 PM on July 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Kind of like Preparations A through G.

They've had preparations I, J, and K for fifty years (all three of which completely cure hemorrhoids), but the pharmaceutical companies have been sitting on them because its more profitable to sell a treatment than a cure.
posted by Pyry at 5:55 PM on July 25, 2008

That is far more dangerous! By creating a second sun opposite to the earth's first sun, this will create an antipodal point to sunup and sundown, adding in four new corners to earth, and a new rotation direction When you factor rotation and the precession of equinoxes, you see that this adds 17 new dimensions to TIME. Opposites are a fraud. Earth existence will become a cube within an anticube within the time hypercube. Where is your god now?
posted by qvantamon at 1:26 AM on July 26, 2008 [5 favorites]