Send a probe into the Sun? No.

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NASA is scheduled, for some time in 2018, to launch a probe that will go through the Sun's corona, to gather information. (It's now known that the solar corona extends much farther out than was previously thought.)

Does anyone else agree that that sounds objectionable?

If NASA wants to deposit garbage on the moon and Mars, and other planets and moons, and in effectively-perpetual solar orbit, that isn't so bad. But must we intrusively experiment on the Sun too?

The Sun, with about 100 times the Earth's diameter, and a million times the Earth's volume, is the source of energy for life on the Earth. Is it that we really don't respect anything? Is there anything that we won't spit on?

If, after it is directed into a trajectory that goes through the solar corona, the probe isn't accelerated out of that orbit, then it will remain in that orbit that periodically goes through the solar corona. With each such passage, it will lose a little speed and energy, until it eventually falls into the Sun. (I don't know how long that will take.)

So then, not only are we intrusively experimenting on the Sun, but then we're depositing our garbage into it.

So, you go outside on a beautiful morning, and say, "Ah, sunshine, trees with green photosynthetic leaves, and a nice solar-heat-generated convective breeze. So let's intrusively experiment on the Sun and dump our garbage into it! ".

Michael829

Is this a joke?

Regrettably no.

I didn't make it up. You can look it up on the Internet. I believe it's called the Parker probe.

Michael829

I wasn't referring to the probe. I was referring to your comments about throwing garbage into the sun.

The sun would be pretty much the perfect garbage dump. We could not possibly dump enough garbage into the sun to cause any issues at all.

There's nothing to say to you.

...except that I'll answer your statement below:



It isn't only a matter of whether the Parker probe will damage the Sun.

If you spit on a statue or a person, that won't damage it, but does that make it something you want to do? I guess some kinds of people would. I can't speak for you.

Humans are ground-monkeys whose monkeying-around is destroying the Earth's habitability.

But, even when that monkeying-around doesn't result in destruction, it can still be repugnant.
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As for your assurance that, due to its small size, the Parker probe won't do damage:

Probably not.

Are you sure that "probably" is good enough, in an instance like this?

This is something that we haven't done before. Need we start?

Is the detailed mechanism of the Sun completely known? Isn't part of the probe's justification, the fact that that mechanism isn't completely known?

You're probably right: The ratio of size between the Sun, and that piece of spit, means that it probably won't do harm.

When I say "Is 'probably' good enough?",
that's meant partly (but not only) as a matter of principle.

Here's a suggestion: Spitting on someone won't hurt them. So why don't you go into a motorcycle-bar and spit on a biker.

So it's mostly a matter of principle. But something small can start a chain-reaction that can affect something large. Think of cloud-seeding, for example, or initiating boiling in a large pot of superheated water by dropping a small pebble into it.

...so then comes the "Uh-Oh" or "Oops!" or Oh s**t!" moment.

Probably not? Yes, probably not.

Michael829

The probability that a space probe would cause an issue with the sun is about the same as the probability than the sun will spontaneously turn itself into a giant meatball -- neither is going to happen.

If we could grab Mars and drop it into the sun, the only noticeable effect would be from the impact. And we'd have to be watching very closely to see that.

I'd be surprised if objects larger than the space probe didn't fall into the sun on a regular basis. Even large objects on occasion.

A couple of decades ago, a comet hit Jupiter. The results? Minor disturbances in the cloud cover that disappeared quickly. It is quite possible that it would have never been noticed if we had not already knew it was going to hit Jupiter.

Are you joking?



Or are you seriously upset about this?

If you're worried about littering - nobody lives on the sun to see the litter, and the thing would vaporize in the corona before it would reach the sun's surface (the sun atmosphere is hotter than its surface) anyway. And the sun has no biosphere. No ecology to upset.

Some science minded person once told me that "we shouldn't use the sun as a garbage dump because it shortens the lifespan of the Sun( by an infinitesimal amount to be sure)". So in all fairness there IS that,but.....the sun is gonna shine for more than four billion years before it turns into a red giant. One space craft is not gonna make much difference to that. And just like the earth gets hit by tons of rock and iron meteors naturally every day, the Sun also gets hit be even greater numbers of natural iron and stone objects of the same mass as this probe by the thousands every hour. So nature is already adulterating the Sun faster than we are.

"Hey, hey, we're the Monkees
And people say we monkey around."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg6mpYwEIYM

i’m pretty sure the sun would almost instantly destroy anything we have to throw at it.

there’s nothing we can do to harm it with our current technologies. no ecology to upset and the data we get will help us as well i hope.

yeah, we don’t know what would happen 100% , that’s true...but we sent a probe to venus once and that melted almost right away no harm done. so IMO it’s safe to say the more intense and massive star would hardly bat an eye.

as for your analogy between hurling a tiny probe into THE SUN and spitting on a biker - i have no words.

Some things would probably make it well into the corona, but with serious heat damage. Considering that it is about 5,000,000 kilometers thick (I looked it up), not much would make it all the way through the corona without melting.

You think this is bad? According to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there used to be a band called Disaster Area who would crash spaceships into suns!

From the Guide

This is the reason why you shouldn't be worried about it. There is no reason why a probe with less mass that a small car would have any effect on the Sun whatsoever.

That's doubtful, but irrelevant. Spontaneous events are out of our hands.

As I've been repeating, there probably won't be harm.



Probably not. As I've been repeating, there will probably be no harm.



Be sure to use adequate filtration.

As I've been repeating, there will probably be no harm.



Quite possibly. And the composition and configuration of their matter is identical to that of the Parker probe, right?



As I've been repeating, there probably will be no harm.

And, as I also have already said, my objection is largely aesthetic and a matter of principle.

You know, the Sun doesn't belong to any country, least of all to any agency of any country. Intrusive experimentation on something that isn't owned by the experimenter should require some consensus. That's just obvious.

A lot of people here like science, and that's a good thing. But many people who like science feel a duty to defend any science, any proposed experiment, as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive, or very likely to bring disaster.

...as part of a duty to defend science from the anti-science heathens.

The Sun isn't just another object, like planets, moons or asteroids, to dump on and experiment on. Go outside. The Sun is an essential part of that environment that you walk into when you go out the door. ...aside from the fact that it's what makes life on Earth possible at all.

It's bizarre that it's being regarded as just another thing to intrusively experiment on.

Yes, every time you get in a car and go on the road, you're taking a much greater risk than any risk to you from the Parker solar-corona probe.

It's about principle and aesthetics, not just risk.

Last edited by Michael829 on 07 Dec 2017, 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

...probably.

There's something called a "chain-reaction". A small object entering a much larger object, can start a process that soon propagates throughout the larger object.

Examples:

Dropping a rough-surfaced pebble into a large pot of superheated water.

Cloud-seeding.

Yes, before you say it, the ratio of masses, between the Parker probe and the Sun is greater than the ratio of masses between a boiling-chip and a pot of water, or cloud-seeding material and a cloud.

The point of my comment is that, via a chain-reaction, a small object can influence a much larger one.

Michael829

Last edited by Michael829 on 07 Dec 2017, 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As I've been repeating, harm is unlikely.

It's mostly aesthetic, and a matter of principle.

The Sun isn't something to dump garbage on, or intrusively experiment on.

Last edited by Michael829 on 07 Dec 2017, 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In this case, the probability of us harming the sun is less than what in mathematics is known as "arbitrarily close to zero". That is, zero.



Principle and aesthetics? That is absurd. There's no question of principle and aesthetics at all. Whatever we might dump into the sun would be gone. It would not damage the sun. It would not clutter up the sun. The sun would be merely a few pounds heavier.

The only way principle would be involved is if we were proposing to shoot living bodies into the sun and that would come from the killing of the humans or animals, not because of the sun.

Last edited by kokopelli on 07 Dec 2017, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.