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Introduction 1
Comments on Units and Notation 3
A Universal Problem 5
Dealing with Fermi 6
The Drake Equation 9
"Hey! Over Here!" 11
Caveat 13
Types of Civilizations 14
Moving Forward 15
It's a Matter of Time 23
Time and Transformation 24
The Deadly Earth 26
The Deadly Solar System 28
The Deadly Stars 33
Deadly Novae 38
GRBs and Hypernovae 44
The Embrace of Andromeda 47
Deep Time 49
The Doomsday Event 49
The Long and the Short of It 50
Making the Best of It 51
Dyson Spheres 52
Terraforming 53
Space Structures 57
Thinking Long-Term 58
The Sun, Inside and Out 71
Star Basics 72
The Dynamical Timescale 73
Hydrostatic Equilibrium 75
The Pressure Law 76
The Central Temperature 78
Photon Diffusion Time 78
Energy Transport 80
The Surface Temperature of a Star 82
Stellar Luminosity 83
Energy Generation 83
Nuclear Fusion 85
The Mass Luminosity Law 87
A Journey Through the HR Diagram 88
The Journey of the Canonical Sun 90
The Reasons for Gigantism 95
A Negative Feedback System 97
Fundamental Constants 99
The Quantum World of the Electron 101
Collapsing Gas Clouds 102
Why Stars Are Massive 103
A Constraint on Planet Building 105
The Price of Doing Nothing 113
The Habitability Zone 113
The Ocean on Europa 115
A Brief Aside: Utilizing Europa 117
Moon Life 117
Synchronization and the Moon Effect 118
The Upper Limit 119
A Moving Habitability Zone 120
The Beginning of the End 122
The Fate of Venus and Earth 123
The Outer Planets 125
Orbital Engineering 127
Waving the Flag 130
End Games and Exotic Worlds 131
A Moving Imperative 134
Rejuvenating the Sun 147
The Engineering Options 147
Mixing and Mass Loss 148
Adding to the Pressure 150
The Opacity Effect 152
The Tools of the Trade 153
A Homogeneous Star Model 154
Introducing Mass-Loss 155
The Fate of the Ejected Material 156
An Outline Scenario for Rejuvenating the Sun 157
The UV Problem 159
The Extended Solar System Lifetime 160
Mixing It Up 162
Black Hole Mixing 163
A Steady Stellar Diet 165
Brave New Worlds 169
An Alien Beast Within 171
Solar Wrap Control 173
What the Future Holds 175
Stars Transformed 181
Revisiting Carter 181
An Exoplanet Review 181
The Case of the Blue Stragglers 184
The Time of Their Lives 189
Under Construction 190
On the Threshold 191
Between Now and Then 197
Do We Have a Near-Term Future? 197
What Price the Future? 198
Thinking Long-Term 201
Taking the Next Step 202
Future Earth 205
Epilogue 209
Glossary of Terms 213
A Homogeneous Star Model 217
An Accreting Black Hole Model 221
Index 223
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Bernd Loeffler
reviewed Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes on November 13, 2012
Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes
Saskatchewan astronomer Martin Beech's Rejuvenating the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes is a slim book that more than satisfies my interest in radical futurology, with its talk of remodeling entire planetary systems, what Beech calls "asteroengineering." It reminds me of the far-future space opera Orion's Arm, where humans and their ally species and their created species and guardian artificial intelligences combine to make the galaxy that much more hospitable to intelligent life, whether through terraforming once-sterile environments or transforming solar systems into vast arcologies.
Although Beech is concerned with asteroid impacts, Rejuvenating the Sun is most concerned with the aging of the sun. Aging Sol will become a swollen red giant in five billion years, but long before that fate the heating sun will make Earth's present environment unsustainable in several hundred million years. Earth might avoid becoming a Venus-like world for a couple billion years after that. If, Beech suggests, we care for our world, surely we should try to keep it--and its sister worlds, too, Venus and Mars, hopefully rendered Earth-like themselves--a living world for as long as possible.
How is this to be accomplished? A relatively simple method Beech outlines is the gradual shifting of Earth's orbit further out of the solar system, through encounters with well-placed asteroids which pull Earth out as Sol's energy output grows, thus keeping the climate stable. Far more radical means would involve sharply reducing the sun's mass, using barely imagined technologies--solar sail arrays, magnetic field projectors, hypervelocity asteroid bombardments--to vapourize entire layers of our star, directing its mass towards--somewhere. Perhaps it could be used to create some very durable low-mass stars in the Oort cloud.
Rejuvenating the Sun has structural flaws. An extended essay, really, Beech gets to the point of his book only in the last couple of chapters, leaving interested readers like myself bored, and his style of writing could be stilted (the narratives are unappealing). That said, I was an interested reader. I'm interested in astronomy and science; I'm interested in science fiction; I am, for any number of reasons, interested in preserving things, in extending things to new environments. The idea terraformed Solar System really appeals to me, and I couldn't help but agree with others who read about the Epsilon Aurigae dust clouds and wondered if someone had built something there. Beech did a good job in writing about a highly speculative subject of no small interest to me but of little interest to others. How can I do anything but be glad that this book exists and was available to me?
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Add Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes, Canadian academic Martin Beech has written a text that attempts to cross the line between science fiction and science fact. Put simply, his book details a method that just might be able to stop the Sun from losing its power and, ultimately, save humanity , Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes, Canadian academic Martin Beech has written a text that attempts to cross the line between science fiction and science fact. Put simply, his book details a method that just might be able to stop the Sun from losing its power and, ultimately, save humanity , Re-Igniting the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes to your collection on WonderClub |
