Chiron?

[Sir Hawkeye]

I know how to settle this. It's quite simple really:
1. Attach massive thrusters to Saturn(below the surface near dense parts)
2. Crash it into Jupiter
3. If Jupiter then becomes a star, 50% is the approximate figure. If not, repeat process with Neptune.

[Christantine The Great]

Blake, no need to get hostle!

There is an easier solution than Sir Hawkeye's:

Find a very large rock (Earth-sized)
Push it toward Saturn
Make rock push Saturn in Jupiter's orbit, but slower
Jupiter will eat up Saturn
BOOM!

[Blake]

Jupiter eating Saturn would look really cool - after the collision "Jupiter" would be a big ball of molten hydrogen. BUT it would eventually cool into a big all of cool hydrogen. Nuclear fusion would not start, all heat would come from the collision. Ofcourse it would be nigh impossible to move Saturn into Jupiters orbit. Even using all of Uranus's and Neptunes moons as ammo for fusion-powered rail-guns may not be enough.

There is some better ideas for turning Jupiter into a big energy producing thingy (not star). One is floating fusion reactors in the atmosphere, these then beam the power (via microwave, or light or whatever) to human colonies on Jupiters moons, float a few hundred of these fusion lamps and they could keep the moons powered for a very long time.

The other idea which would be more of a "go out with a bang" thing is to find a very small blackhole and drop it into Jupiter, as it sucked in matter it (or more the falling matter) would release obscene amounts of energy. It would be possible to lure a small black hole with a big spaceship, or with the right technology possibly even create a small blackhole. Once the blackhole has miagrated to the centre of Jupiter for a while Jupiter would even look like a star - until it all gets eaten by the hole. A small blackhole is a true planetbuster. Works on stars too.

If you just want fireworks drop Jupiters moons into Juipter. Most of them are tidally locked so just stick a railgun on the farside and keep firing until the moon falls into Jupiter.

[It'sLikeThat]

quote: Originally posted by Blake on 03-24-2001 05:55 PM Jupiter eating Saturn would look really cool - after the collision "Jupiter" would be a big ball of molten hydrogen. BUT it would eventually cool into a big all of cool hydrogen. Nuclear fusion would not start, all heat would come from the collision. Ofcourse it would be nigh impossible to move Saturn into Jupiters orbit. Even using all of Uranus's and Neptunes moons as ammo for fusion-powered rail-guns may not be enough.

If Jupiter ate all the gas giants, it'll probably become one of those failed stars -- those brown dwarves.


Is it not possible for the orbits of these planets to be disturbed if a black hole were to pass through the solar system? Then you wouldn't have to shoot moons at Jupiter to move it.

[Blake]

You need to realise that Jupiter is bigger than all the other planets combined, even if it abosrbed all other planets in our solar system it would be less than twice as large, nowhere near large enough to start nuclear fusion in it's core.

Quite right about a passing blackhole (or star, or mega planet). But getting a large enough black hole to pass through would be harder than moving the planets themselves. There is a random chance that one day a star (or other large body) will pass by close to our Sun and knock earth out of orbit. That would kinda be a bumma. There is also a theory that the Sol system is a binary star, the other is called the "death star" (doom star?) or something like that and is smaller, dimmer and in a highly eccentric orbit, and it currently at it's most distance. Every few million years it comes in close to the planets, bringing a swarm of comets and other sh*t which slam into the planets (dinosaur extiction etc). Just a theory, and I don't believe it.

[Kinjiru]

I by no means make any claims to scientific support for the things that I am about to say, so consider yourselves forewarned...

I have always had the idea that an orbit is a pretty precarious thing. A small change in position or oribital speed would result quite a calamity. For example, if the speed at which Mercury orbits the Sun were to decrease, wouldn't Mercury's orbit immediately begin to decay, with the eventual result that Mercury will vaporize as it approaches the sun?

Now I suppose the problematic aspect to my view is that it would take a massive amount of energy to affect the orbital speed or position of any but the smallest of celestial bodies and that if that much energy were suddenly available then there would be all sorts of nasty consequences to the system....


Oh, and a token statement to keep the post on-topic... Last weekend I actually got obliterated in an SP game. I had a binary system of my own going on with 2 size 45 bases four squares apart. MY2399 and asteroid strike kills those two bases. MY 2400 Yang takes out my southeastern wing with 3 well shot PBs. Deirde takes out my southwestern wing with a few more. MY2401 my remaining bases (all 4 four of them) were overrun will massive swarms of mindworms and locusts...

[Blake]

quote: I have always had the idea that an orbit is a pretty precarious thing. A small change in position or oribital speed would result quite a calamity. For example, if the speed at which Mercury orbits the Sun were to decrease, wouldn't Mercury's orbit immediately begin to decay, with the eventual result that Mercury will vaporize as it approaches the sun?

That isn't how it works You don't really get decaying orbits, if you change the velocity of an orbiting object it just ends up in a new orbit, unless the new orbit actually takes it into the sun's atmosphere the orbit wont decay.. There are heaps of java solar-system simulators floating around on the net if you want to play around with moving planets (I programmed my own )

[It'sLikeThat]

The death star theory would account for the strange wobbling of the gas giants, right?

Besides, meteor strikes occur after roughly the same period of time, about 30 million years. Another star would certainly be responsible for kicking the Kuiper belt objects towards the inner solar system.

What I can't understand is why they haven't detected this death star. i mean if they can detect objects as far away as quasars and dim objects like brown dwarves, why can't they detect this death star, which is probably also a brown dwarf.

[bondetamp]

quote: Originally posted by knowhow2 on 03-19-2001 08:47 PM johndmuller, I also have mine on page 14 , maybe closey and I got the "Swedish version" . (it's still in english though)

Shouldn't it be on page 20 or something then? I mean it seems logical that they would use a larger print in the Swedish version...

[knowhow2]

bondetamp,


lets see where I should start.... how many ski gold did Norway get in the last World Cup.....

[It'sLikeThat]

knowhow2, are you on the board 24/7?

[knowhow2]

Sleeping, who needs that.

[Blake]

quote: Originally posted by knowhow2 on 03-29-2001 11:35 AM Sleeping, who needs that.

Right!

I don't think I've posted between 3am and 6am yet, but the rest of the hours are fair game!

Prehaps there should be a faction "The Sleepless" which have enhanced themselves so they don't need to sleep. Heheheh.
+2 Industry: (24hr industry)
+1 Economy: (No-one ever "sleeps on the job")
-25% rushbuy costs: (Workers available 24hrs)
Extra drone per worker: (ie every citizen a drone) People always grumpy.
Robust Police: (everyone is already grumpy, whats one more thing to complain about...)

I'm the sleepless leader

[knowhow2]

quote: I'm the sleepless leader

No no, I think I would have to fight you for that title....

[Blake]

quote: Originally posted by knowhow2 on 03-29-2001 07:03 PM No no, I think I would have to fight you for that title....

Probably

I'm getting too old to be the sleepless leader anyway, last year I had no problems with posting at 5am in the morning. For a few weeks I actually went semi-nocturnal, sleeping from late morning to early evening. Which was great except I was meant to be going to lectures