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XueShiLong t1_j8uk5gc wrote

it would totally fry the Earth and throw all the planets out of orbit. Systems evolve organically, if you suddenly throw huge mass into them, everything goes to hell.

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Aubrimethieme t1_j8vy051 wrote

That was my first thought as well lol.

If we naturally had a binary system, then the habitable zone would be farther than it is for our system as it's technically double the solar energy bashing planets in the face.

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CFCYYZ t1_j8uxm10 wrote

A twin G class solar system is kinda like the Alpha/Beta Centauri system. There, two main suns orbit each other with a third red dwarf, and everything else orbits them. Depending on the inter-solar distance and barycenter, planets in such systems may follow peculiar orbits. For example, a rocky planet like ours may orbit in and out of the Habitable Zone, so hard for life to arise.

Make your own star system and play with it.
Click Lab and then the pull down for binary star, planet.
Turn on Path to see planet's wild orbits in a binary star system. There are other systems too.

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Supermop2000 t1_j8uidk8 wrote

No, it would destabilise the solar system. If you mean a heat source with no gravitational influence, then still no; it would just turn Mars into a hot wasteland instead of a cold one, since Mars has no magnetosphere to protect biological systems from solar radiation.

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Lampposthead2526 t1_j8usuwi wrote

Just a question, how does one get a magnetosphere?

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DeezNeezuts t1_j8uuiae wrote

Your gonna have to eat a shit load of iron and nickel and spin really fast.

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AvcalmQ t1_j8uvyqg wrote

"Not too fast though, and you gotta be real hot. Not too hot though, and you gotta have layers, like an onion. Not sure if you can have too many layers, but you don't wanna be an onion anyway."

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Lampposthead2526 t1_j8v874x wrote

So what your saying is that it’s possible.

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baphosam t1_j8w2lyq wrote

Possible when we can harvest galactic Amounts of resources and the notion of Terraforming is less fiction.

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EarthSolar t1_j8v5wkc wrote

please don’t try to get yourself a personal magnetosphere. It’s not worth it.

Jokes aside, I believe we’re not really sure how and why intrinsic magnetospheres show up on Earth and Mercury but not Venus and Mars (which have induced ones which block solar wind better instead). Mercury, Earth, and Mars are all known to have liquid core, but it seems Mars’ core isn’t convecting and thus no dynamo.

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YesWeHaveNoTomatoes t1_j8v7kyx wrote

My understanding is that the problem for Mars and Mercury was that they aren't massive enough to keep their cores hot, so as the cores cooled their planetary dynamos slowed and the magnetospheres dissipated.

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EarthSolar t1_j8vxf6s wrote

Mercury is known to have a magnetosphere (albeit a weak one). by the way.

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Lampposthead2526 t1_j8v8ued wrote

I don’t have much to say but I like your comment. I didn’t know Mercury has, maybe in some part, a liquid core. Been writing some stuff about Mercury as usual. I found it fascinating in a sense for storytelling wise, a leftover planet. Anyways writing is a whole other tangent lol. Mercury mining while being landlocked by Venus due to technology not advanced enough to drive past planets. I need more world building lol.

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EarthSolar t1_j8vxjz2 wrote

It's a little funny to hear Mercury mining now that I know it's weirdly iron-poor on the surface. Despite having the highest core fraction, its surface is really lacking in that stuff. I wonder what resources can be found on the Mercurian surface - I recall carbon is one, but not sure about other stuff aside from the usual silicates.

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HaphazardlyOrganized t1_j8uxelc wrote

The dynamo effect. Theoretically if you take a bunch of metallic elements and make them really hot and spinny you get a big ole magnetic field.

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Takeyouonajourney9 t1_j8v2jae wrote

Take a planet with a molten center and smash another planet, preferably with water on it into it.. as the internet has led me to believe..

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EarthSolar t1_j8v5kjp wrote

The atmosphere blocks radiation well enough on its own, thanks. An intrinsic magnetosphere doesn’t really protect the atmosphere either.

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Supermop2000 t1_j8zfyq6 wrote

come back when Mars has an atmosphere - already stripped away... cos no magnetosphere :P

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EarthSolar t1_j8zloa8 wrote

Got it - you have no intention of learning. Hope your bubble is at least fun to stay in.

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Supermop2000 t1_j90rph6 wrote

My really, that's not very mature now is it.

Your post mentioned nothing about protection from solar radiation, only that planets without magnetospheres could hold their atmosphere longer than originally thought. If doesn't specify whether longer or not with a magnetosphere, nor whether it would deflect harmful radiation, so get off ya high horse.

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the7thletter t1_j8uo5n5 wrote

I think it would exponentially increase radiation for sure. Then with with the orbit of (either/and-or/both) then destroy our solar system just due to the difference in orbital " Unless the simulation runs perfect and they somehow manage to drop it on a location that will figure 8 our solar system in a manner that will keep things at status quo.

Short answer is no fuckin way my dude.

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socksandshots t1_j8urhpq wrote

Interesting point. I'm afraid that the gravitational waves generated would cause mass tidal chaos on all the inner planets. I'd imagine mercury and venus would be just ripped apart by such forces. Earth... Possible mass tectonic instability but also the addition of such a huge mass would have a huge impact on our mostly iron core, thus irrevocably damaging our van allen belts (magnetic fields formed by our spinning iron core and what protects our atmos from being blasted away by solar wind and our genome from exited particles thrown out from the sun).

The question remaining would be only what would end life first, the tectonic disruption or the loss of atmo and mass mutations because of nothing to protect us from the fierce solar radiation and solar wind (two different phenomena) in the absence of the van allen belts.

Im ignoring the heat factor for now.

Edit. It could potentially widen the habitable belt, but there's no saying Where this belt would be relative. So it might be much larger, but pushed further back, might not start till past earth.

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harpejjist t1_j8v7wls wrote

After killing us all and starting over (due to all sorts of radiation and gravity issues pulling and hitting the planet) then maybe?

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Casioblo t1_j8v9ijy wrote

We would be living on Tatooine basically (assuming some of us will live).

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Carbidereaper t1_j8vnatv wrote

Only if the sun is within 160 million miles from earth (earth to the sun is 93 million miles and mars closest approach to earth is 70 million miles) of corse putting a sun at that distance would destabilize all of the orbits of the gas giants and cause Jupiter’s orbit to to become so eccentric that it would gravitationally either kick the inner planets out of our star system or send them falling into the sun

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SirX86 t1_j8vwyb7 wrote

We'd probably all die horribly but I'm going to need Randall Munroe to figure out in which order we're going to freeze to death, go up in flames, get fried by radiation and drown from massive tsunamis.

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space-ModTeam t1_j8w37le wrote

Hello u/Country_Royal, your submission "If someone were to hypothetically put a sun next to ours as a binary system, would this increase the length of the habitable zone radius of the system?" has been removed from r/space because:

  • Such questions should be asked in the "All space questions" thread stickied at the top of the sub.

Please read the rules in the sidebar and check r/space for duplicate submissions before posting. If you have any questions about this removal please message the r/space moderators. Thank you.

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frustrated_staff t1_j8umxqe wrote

Depends on distance, really. Too close? Fries everything. Too far away, no net effect. Good enough? Still depends: could expand tye current habitable zone (probably not, though), more likely, makes a figure 8 habitable zone where Neptune becomes Habitable (in terms of heat, anyway)

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