The Sun was born about 4.6 billion years ago, collapsing from a dense knot of gas, dust and ice. Under the influence of gravity, a clump accumulated mass, increasing in density till the pressure and temperature rose sufficiently to sustain the fusion of hydrogen, the lightest element in the universe into helium, the second lightest element in the universe. It was the mistake of our Sun that it was an oversized baby, gobbling up too much gas and dust in its embryonic state. The abundance of stellar raw material gives it a lifespan of about ten billion years, about the tenth of a lifespan as say a red dwarf star. All the planets in the Solar System were assembled in the debris surrounding the newborn Sun.
There are about 450 Earth masses of material in orbit around the Sun. All the planets, moons, asteroids, comets, dwarf comets along with any icy-rocky objects lurking in at great distances from the Sun all put together make up only a fraction of the mass of the Solar System. About 20 Earth masses of metals are available, along with 50 Earth masses of water and 300 Earth masses of rock. In the asteroid belt, there is about 600 quadrillion tons of metals, which is the most accessible form of useful material. This is the amount of raw material available to humans for any stellar engineering projects aimed at lifting mass out of the Sun, to extend its lifespan.
The benefits of Star Lifting
The Sun is a hot ball of plasma containing the mass of about 333,000 Earths. Most of the plasma is hydrogen and helium, but two per cent consists of heavier elements, which are all metals as far as astrophysicists are concerned. Removing 50 per cent of the mass of the Sun would extend its lifespan to 50 billion years. Removing 60 per cent is sufficient to extend its lifespan to 100 billion years. Most of the material could be redirected to Jupiter, to create a second star, forge a binary system, and potentially create habitable conditions in the ice moons of Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. Lifting 50-60 per cent of the mass of the Sun would provide future solar engineers between 250 and 300 Earth masses of additional metal to work with, along with over 1,500 Earth masses of water and 1,100 Earth masses of rock.
The metals needn’t be transported very far, and can be assembled into a stellar pump, to squeeze more matter out of the Sun. Rigid structures are impractical, so the bulk of most Dyson Structures would consist of swarms of lightweight, reflective metallic fragments, designed to harness, transmit and turn the energy radiating from the Sun. Initial construction would have to begin in the asteroid belt to take advantage of the abundance of raw materials, with the alternative being disassembly of a few moons, if not a planet. Once the material starts being pumped out of the Sun, the plasma stream can be harvested for the metal necessary to accelerate the process. Streams of metallic fragments falling into the Sun before switching polarities to push away can be used to squeeze out more plasma from the Sun.
The Dyson swarm would ultimately be made up of photovoltaic panels that double up as solar sails, and satellites for storing and transmitting energy. It would take decades for the satellites in trains to lift out of the Sun. With the star lifting, and using up only the material in the asteroid belt, it is possible to build a Dyson swarm of one octillion, one hundred twenty septillion or 1,120,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubesats equipped with two square metres of photovoltaics. This insane number is greater than all the stars in the universe. A fully assembled swarm could lift the material necessary from the Sun within 30 years. Constructing the swarm though, would take around 36,000 years. Jupiter can be ignited in as little as 100 years, considering some additional hand-waving to create the specific conditions necessary for fusion. Before we do it though, we might get help. If someone else has already tried out this approach, we can ask them for blueprints. Our astronomical instruments are just about sensitive enough to find the civilisations that have already executed such load shedding of their host stars. Astronomers have even worked out how to find these Lazarus Stars.
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