pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) (08/26/88)
Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill
two birds with one stone: getting dangerously radioactive stuff off of the Earth
and also once the plutonium was in the sun it would be ionized and therefore
be detected by an alien race (if they are equipped with a damn good s[ppectro-
meter).
I see two problems: one is that you'd have to decelarate your load of Pt by
the orbital speed of the Earth to have it drop into the sun, and that speed
is 18.5 miles per second, which is as far as I know a damn sight faster than
we can go right now. The second problem is that to be seen as an emission
line from several light years away you'd have to dump a lot (A LOT!!) of
the stuff into the sun. I haven't actually done the calculation (line
intensities are difficult to get) but I would think you're talking about
billions if not trillions of tons of plutonium.
If someone out there can do this calculation, I'd love to see it. I don't
trust my numbers all that well. But I'm pretty sure we don't have enough plut
onium on the planet to be seen.
\
{Phil Plait/pcp2g@cdc.virginia.acc.edu/UVa Astronomy Dept.}jimk@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Kendall) (08/26/88)
In article <880825130944.0000072C.ABAY.AA@Virginia> pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) writes: >Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill >two birds with one stone:[] >I see two problems: I'll add a third; the likelyhood of a mishap during launch. Imagine a rocket full of Pt exploding over Florida............ Cheers! -- Jim Kendall Send all prank mail My boss is in full jimk@iscuva.ISCS.COM to: /dev/null agreement with all uunet!iscuva!jimk of my opinions....
mvs@meccsd.MECC.MN.ORG (Michael V. Stein) (08/27/88)
In article <880825130944.0000072C.ABAY.AA@Virginia> pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) writes: >Someone wrote in suggesting that we dump plutonium into the sun and kill >two birds with one stone: getting dangerously radioactive stuff off of the Earth >and also once the plutonium was in the sun it would be ionized and therefore >be detected by an alien race (if they are equipped with a damn good s[ppectro- >meter). Plutonium is far too valuable of an energy source to go throw it away. Even if we could, which as Mr. Plait later explains is probabally impossible, it would be one of the most stupid ideas ever implemented by anyone on this planet - or probably any other planet for that matter. -- Michael V. Stein - Minnesota Educational Computing Corp. - Technical Services {bungia,cbosgd,uiucdcs,umn-cs}!meccts!mvs or mvs@mecc.MN.ORG
fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) (08/29/88)
In article <1909@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, jimk@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Kendall) writes: > > I'll add a third; the likelyhood of a mishap during launch. > > Imagine a rocket full of Pt exploding over Florida............ Tell me when!! I'll be there!! (Unless you meant Pu, which is lots less useful in the bank than platinum.)
pcp2g@CDC.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU (=3545***) (08/30/88)
Well, it looks like I have to flame my own flame. I made several errors
in my last mailing.
1) Plutonium is Pu, not Pt. Someone already e-mailed a correction to me.
I'm an astronomer, not a chemist, dammit!
2) Replace "emission line" with "absorption line". Cold matter against
a hot background absorbs radiation.
3) I was wrong about having to decelerate the package by 18.5 miles/sec
to collide it with the Sun. Using Jupiter or the moon or even the
Earth itself for a gravity assist (slingshot) would do the trick. It
would still be difficult, but not impossible.
4) There are two problems I overlooked--one is that what happens if
the rocket carrying the Pu blows up twenty miles up? Scratch one eco-
sphere, that's what. A payload like that is too risky to launch. The
other problem was pointed out to me by a friend: To create an absorption
line, the absorber must be in the upper atmosphere of the sun, where the
solar gas is tenuous enough to see through. A payload would tend to sink
out of sight. Perhaps blowing up the payload might keep it in the upper
atmosphere temporarily , but convection would eventually suck it down.
And there still is the problem that you need a shitload of Plutonium
to be visible even from the Earth, let alone from another star.
So, I have fanned my own flame. Next time I'll open my brain before I
open my mouth.
PS- There may be another copy of this (a first draft, actually) that may
get sent. The tin box I use to get Digest on tends to massively screw up
e-
e-mail, as that last line shows (the editor is about ten years old on
this machine).
{Philip Plait/PCP2G@cdc.Virginia.acc.edu/UVa Dept of Astronomy}
[If you laid all statisticians end to end, they would all point in
diferent directions]