Poll: Could a sun still burn underwater?

[direkiller]

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....

As a red dwarf is gas(alot of gas but still gas) it would behave like any object getting pulled into a larger gravitation field(just look up videos of black holes eating stars and you would have a rough idea).

The star would string out and just feed into the atmosphere. Mind you the gas is still 4000*k so the water would boil off and break down quite easily(assuming the planet is made up of things denser then iron and would not cause the pull of gravity to turn the planet into a neutron star) i guess the planet would eventually have water again in a few billion or so years

That being said you might as well write anything you want you somehow already have a planet that is larger then most of the stars in this galaxy that has the mass and material to fuse but yet is not and was not in the past to the point it can support water so you left reality long ago.

 

[Jonluw]

I don't see why fusion shouldn't be able to occur under water. You need to remember that stars don't "burn" as such. The water might even provide a handy source of hydrogen to fuel the fusion.

There are two problems though:
1. Lots of water will evaporate. Depending on the scale of things, there could be various effects of this. It would most likely look like a giant explosion though, and cause huge tsunamis and whatnot.
When the star is submerged in the water, a large coulumn of water vapor will certainly be a permanent fixture at the point above where the star is submerged. Lots of steam would rise into the atmoshphere of the ocean world and cause greater amounts of rain. The winds in the areas near the submersion-point will all move in the direction of the coulumn of steam.
Lots of other implications as well.

2. The fusion of the star might set off a chain reaction and cause fusion to occur throughout the entire ocean, thus turning said ocean world into a burning hell. Basically a new star.

This is all coming from a layman though, so it could be I'm wrong.

 

[GameChanger]

Technically speaking, a sun doesn't 'burn'. So, yes, it would keep doing what it does now. What happens to the water is another thing. Probably evaporate and rapidly expand, pushing away all remaining water to the outside.

 

[Storm Dragon]

If the star is active, then it has enough gravity to induce fusion. The heat it produces would evaporate the water, but I think that most of the vapor would be captured by the star's gravity. Therefore, it would most likely draw the water into itself, break it down into hydrogen and oxygen, and use the two elements as fuel. As it does this, the added mass will increase its gravitational field, causing it to draw in more and more of the planet and making it capable of fusing heavier elements. In the end, I believe the most likely outcome would be that the star eventually consumes the entire planet as fuel.

This is all wrong. See the post below.

 

[Storm Dragon]

The planet couldn't be larger than the sun as the immense gravitational pressure will turn it into a sun.

Wait, this guy's right. The smallest known star is still larger than the largest known rocky planet. Gas giants can be larger, but then it wouldn't be a water world. The gravitational pull of a rocky planet of that size would cause it to collapse into itself and undergo stellar fusion. Any body of water large enough to contain a star would have enough mass to become a star itself.

 

[albinoterrorist]

The sun could not burn underwater because there would BE NO WATER.
I don't think you fully grasp how GODDAMN HOT a sun is.

 

[Amaror]

I don't how big this planet of yours might be, but i think a red dwarf would still have a diameter of 10^5 kilometer.
And it would be 2200 kelvin hot.
You could go with a brown dwarf, which would be smaller but i don't know how small.

 

[Storm Dragon]

I don't how big this planet of yours might be, but i think a red dwarf would still have a diameter of 10^5 kilometer.
And it would be 2200 kelvin hot.
You could go with a brown dwarf, which would be smaller but i don't know how small.

Brown dwarves aren't actually stars. They are supermassive gas giant planets that almost have enough mass to initiate fusion, but not enough.

 

[Xanadu84]

It wouldn't be doused if that's the question. Its not a fire in the normal sense, its a nuclear reaction. This is more like asking if a nuclear bomb can detonate underwater.

The water would be steam long before it hit the star, but that vapor would get sucked in. Then, I see 2 things happening based on adding raw material to the star.

1, the added hydrogen would fuel the suns reaction. I think. Im not sure if the sun, given infinate material, would grow or if it would simply take longer to exhaust its fuel. With all that fusion going on, and an influx of material, its probably destined to be a black hole assuming infinate water.

2, maybe that hydrogen is not useable in water form, or maybe the oxygen gums up the stars reaction, and the star burns out. I believe It would become a brown dwarf in this case.

Look up stars Main Sequence for ideas on this, how they evolve based on the materials they contain. But for a nifty, reality ignoring science fantasy approach, you could say that the star slowly grows (or rapidly by star standards). And threatens to become a black hole at any moment. Just remember that functionally, water on a star wouldn't dose anything. What your really doing is adding material to the reaction.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

it's also possible that the water would be not only evapourated but absorbed into the massive fission reactions on the surface of the star, depends on the type of star though... you could end up with said planet becoming engulfed in a newly refuelled star... Can't tell 'till we actually see such an occurance though... doubt that water would put out a star, due to the nature of a star's "fire" not being just fire, but a constant fission/fusion reaction burning tens of thousands of degrees centigrade on the surface, and much, much hotter near the core, in the vaccuum of space...

 

[Agow95]

no, because the water would be instantly turned into steam, and also because star's don't technically "burn" if they did our own sun would have burnt out a few thousand years ago, they fuse a pair Hydrogen atoms into helium, the mass that is lost in this fusion is released as a f-load of energy. if we could achieve this nuclear fusion to the same efficiency as the sun, we could supply the entire electrical needs of the UK with a pint of seawater (not sure for how long though)

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I think you left the reality of science a long time ago and just write whatever the fuck you like.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

All liquid on the planet boils, all rock on the planet melts, basically everthong on that planet would be destroyed.

God no, not the thongs!

 

[spartan231490]

Water would have no effect on a sun, it's a nuclear reaction as a result of pressure, not a combustion from heat and O2. Water, on the other hand would evaporate and be broken down into H2 and O2 from the heat, and pulled into the sun from gravity. I don't know much about stars, but if a red giant crashed into a water planet, I'm pretty sure it would de-age it, because of all the hydrogen, but it would take a long time for the H2 to get to the center, so it wouldn't de-age it for a long time.f

However, you're writing a sci-fi/fantasy book, do what you want, ignore realism if you have to.

 

[Loop Stricken]

So given that a star is nuclear and not chemical, is the answer yes or no?

Because whilst it could burn underwater... there very quickly wouldn't be any water left for it to burn under.

 

[TheIronRuler]

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....

.
The Magnetic and Gravitational fields will tear them apart before they even touch each other, that is assuming that the god-like force you're describing can bring them together. It's like putting two magnets with the '+' and '-' side together, but here the magnets tear to shreds.
.
On the other hand, do what you want since there is no way in hell to make your base assumption realistic, therefore you can create your own universe with your own set of rules.
Please include lesbian elves. Just for me.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Assuming the water wouldn't evaporate for the star. (Surface temperature of the sun is about 10,000F/5,600C) The solar flares that would erupt would most certainly be spectacular.

The sun runs all on its own, with no outside fuel. Its a self contained fusion powered fireball. So it shouldn't be affected by being underwater. In fact it may burn better considering the heat would instantly separate the water into their base atoms (Hydrogen and Oxygen) both of which are EXTREMELY flammable.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Stars form from giant behemoth dust clouds that become so super dense that mass itself "fuses" together in fusion to produce insane amounts of energy. The gravity formed is so intense at this moment that matter itself is converted into energy under the pressure. You cannt have a "mini" sun. Unless a man made pressure tank forces an "artificial" gravity pressure onto matter (what nuclear fusion reactors at the moment do) suns are ALWAYS reletively giant. Sure you could have a larger planet. But suns are SUPERdense at their core. The plannet would be crushed like an egg if the sun wasnt contained or man made, that dense core would crush the matter of the planet into an egg sized lump and consume it if it was THAT close to the planets surface. Not to mention the heat would basically turn the planet into a flaming molten ball of rock. Superheated molten rock. Nothing would survive. Unless man made and man contained (an "escaped" sun would act like a giant hydrogen bomb, same principle but much bigger) the sun would be giant and all consuming. No way a "naked" sun can survive underwater.

 

[NoOne852]

If you put aside the gravitational pull of the sun, and assume the heat somehow didn't make the water evaporate before the sun is remotely close, let alone be submerged, the fact is that a sun is far more complex then just a giant ball of fire. Sure if you had enough water you could put out anything, but that would require an amount beyond unimaginable. Knocking down a hotel with eggs is more likely then to put out a sun with water on some planet.

 

[thahat]

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?

yes, steampower style, also yes: H2o = also hydrogen molecules and air. so the sun might somehow just use it as fuel. if it ever got close enough XD