Poll: Could a sun still burn underwater?

[Gennaroc]

Completely ridiculous question, but I'm half sort of writing a sci-fi/fantasy series, and a set piece I always wanted to include is the fulfilment of a prophecy in which a red dwarf sun is brought into the orbit of supermassive ocean world, then dropped into the waves. My question is what would happen? Would it go out? Would it continue to burn under its own energy even for a small time? Tangentially what would the ridiculously huge amount of steam produced do to the planet at large? Obviously the science involved is not physically sound- in terms of finding a planet that big covered in water, or the ability to shift suns, so don't tell me how stupid it is I'm simply trying to comprehend what would happen if, and what a sun drowning would look like....

 

[cerealnmuffin]

Wouldn't the water evaporate even before the sun got close enough to touch it. As I believe the sun is more like nuclear reactions than a camp fire. Not sure about the steam. Perhaps the planet would resemble a comet's tail as the planet shrinks due to massive water loss.

Also the bigger issue is about the sun's gravitational pull. It would destroy the planet before it could be pulled into the sun. If it was, it would probably show up as a solar flare. The planet couldn't be larger than the sun as the immense gravitational pressure will turn it into a sun. Though I adore astronomy (I'm fascinated by the life cycles of stars and the variations like pulsars and other neat stuff), my forte is history so I can't speak in greater depth about all this.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

The water wouldnt get anywhere near it. It would turn to steam probably thousands of miles before touching the sun. It would probably look something like a crater in the ocean. With the sun in the centre.

 

[Melon Hunter]

If you had a planet big enough, then the star would be surrounded by a 'steam jacket'. You can have the same effect if you drop a piece of red-hot iron into water; the iron will remain glowing for ages, because the steam around it is a terrible thermal conductor, and actually insulates the water from the iron. So, in that regard, your sun would continue to burn; the water on the planet would eventually evaporate long before the star cooled enough to stop the fusion reactions within.

 

[TimeLord]

If a full size sun randomly appeared underwater then the water would instantly evaporate.

 

[Gennaroc]

So we're going with the sun would definitely be able to withstand it and continue through its own fission and simply burn out the ocean around it... cool Would the sudden transition to steam be able to act as a massive power source?

 

[Thaluikhain]

You have two bodies which remain spherical under their own weight. Stick them together and they won't stay as two distinct spheres anymore. Drop the one onto the other and it'll make a hell of a bang and splatter around everywhere rather than sink quietly beneath the waves.

It would be interesting to see what happens if you get a body of water larger than a star and leave it to compress under its own weight, though.

 

[Olrod]

If a Sun can burn in the vacuum of space, where there's no air, no oxygen, nothing... then it can burn underwater.

 

[Esotera]

So we're going with the sun would definitely be able to withstand it and continue through its own fission and simply burn out the ocean around it... cool Would the sudden transition to steam be able to act as a massive power source?

For inhabitants of the planet, yes they could suddenly become steampunk. You'd have to make them technologically advanced enough to either know that this was about to happen, so they could majorly heat-proof their houses, or so that they can just fly off in a spaceship or something.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I agree with the above people that water will be evaporate therefore for a sun to still be burning underwater I think the impossible/ irregular logic is needed.
I only voted yes because of the off side idea that maybe this "water" doesn't evaporate or maybe the sun isn' that hot enought to evaporate the sun.

 

[Axolotl]

Now I'm no science genius, but from what I know of physics, unless that planet is larger than the star, which is a physics nightmare on it's own, then the planet would essentially stop existing and just bemore mass of the star. A red dwarf would be evaporating all the water on the planet from millions of kilometres away, in actual contact with the planet? All liquid on the planet boils, all rock on the planet melts, basically everything on that planet would be destroyed. And this is only accounting for the heat from the star, ignoring the gravity and the fusion.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

So we're going with the sun would definitely be able to withstand it and continue through its own fission and simply burn out the ocean around it... cool Would the sudden transition to steam be able to act as a massive power source?

If a sun had just entered an atmosphere and has landed in the ocean of that planet, then it wouldn't matter if you could harness the steam, because everything would be dead. You ever see Mercury lately? Ya, an average day on it can go up to about 427 C and that's with millions of miles of distance between the sun and the planet.

If a sun landed in our ocean, everything near it would fry. If it was big enough, everything on the planet would fry before it even entered our atmosphere.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

You ever see Mercury lately? Ya, an average day on it can go up to about 427 C and that's with millions of miles of distance between the sun and the planet.

Planets aren't heated up by the sun being hot, they are heated up by the EM radiation it emits. Heat can't transfer through a vacuum.

OT: Yeah, the sun's massive gravitational pull would probably drag in the planet as well, as it is such a dense object. The reason it's so hot is because originally it had such a large mass that fusion began to happen due to the shear amount of force on all of the particles within it.

 

[Doitpow]

snip

The sun would actually get hotter. I know it seems counter-intuitive but it's true.
You have to remember there are no "chemical" reactions going on in the sun, only nuclear. It is not on fire.
Fire works like this. In general
Element+Oxygen+Energy->Elementoxide+more energy.
if you smother ^this energy. Or prevent the Oxygen reaching the fuel. the fire stops, no more energy released.

Nuclear fusion works like this
Light Nucleus+Light nucleus+pressure=heavier nucleus+a fuckton of energy.
Nothing you can do can smother a a nuclear fusion. It would only add to the pressure. Add to that Water being H20, and Hydrogen being the easiest element to undergo fusion, you are literally piling fuel onto the fire (i mean fusion)

also the suns gravity would pull more water to it, compounding the problem


I have TWO solutions/suggesions for you

Research something called a "Y-dwarf" they are small, light, relatively cool stars (it has been suggested (though it is unlikely), that they could be as cold as the human body).
This could NOT be the primary star in a system, it is not massive enough.

The planet it is set on could be what is called subgiant planet, something like Uranus or Neptune. This would allow it to have very deep, very warm oceans.
If the planet is populated by natives give them exceptionally gravity resistant bodies.
If it is colonised use some SF tech that allow everything to resist the extra gravity.

The effects would be

A HUGE increase in global warming. Water vapour is acutally one of the worst greenhouse gases on earth.
Holy shit i just hought of something really cool...BRB MS Paint becons!!


sources: the first year of my physics degree. Some geography i had to study and hate

and probably take Alan Moore's advice over mine, "keep the science accurate as long as it fits the story. if the science doesn't fit the story...fuck the science"~huge paraphrasing here.

 

[Doitpow]

snip

Holy shit i just hought of something really cool...BRB MS Paint becons!!

Remebered I can't do paint for shit. I'll try to describe it.

basically on one side of the planet you have the sun, bascally stuck to the ocean floor, boiling all the ocean, this turns to vapour, rises in the atmosphere and is caught in a high altitude jetstream which transports it to the other side off the planet, where it condenses into constant tropical storms. the water produced flows around the planet to the sun...repeat ad infinitum.
one side of the planet is now a mass of boiling ocean, the other a constant typhoon. there might be a habitable "band" between the two.

The sea however would constantly be dropping in level, as more hydrogne and oxygen are stripped out of the cycle into the sun, which is growing in mass.

more and more land would be being revealed as the sea level drops...maybe theres some ruins of an ancient civilisation there or something?

you have a countdown basically untill all the water is gone or the star gains the necessary mass to tear the planet to bits or simply burn it to nothingness.


woot
there is some soft hypothetical science for you. My earth science lecturing is facepalming in shame

 

[DasDestroyer]

The only reason normal fire doesn't burn underwater is because there's no oxygen to fuel the fire. But since there's no oxygen in space either, and the sun still "burns", which is actually more like smashing atoms together at insane speeds, releasing radiation, it would burn in water too. If you can find enough water, that is, and put the star in it before it all evaporates.

 

[Toaster Hunter]

The water would boil away before it even got close. There is no way this is possible. Also, the amount of water needed would be massive, exponentially larger than the total water of earth.

 

[Fijiman]

There are too many variables and possibilities For me to go into this without going into a huge scientific debate with myself that would take forever to retype here.(and I don't feel like doing that at the moment) In the end, because it's your sci-fi series, you could make it so that a sun could go into the ocean and tap dance with the fish for all you care.

 

[Yopaz]

It can't burn under water because no water could withstand the intense power of the sun.