Eugene Cauzon Wonder Project May 15th
The Sun is a yellow dwarf star located in the middle of our solar system. It is our solar system’s largest object, and it is what the planets revolve around. The sun gives our entire solar system light and energy, without it, life on earth wouldn’t be possible. But the question is, what if our sun were a blue star? I wonder what will happen to our solar system. What will happen to us humans?
Our sun is type G in the star spectral class, and blue stars are type O, the bluest and hottest in the chart. The surface of the sun can reach up to 6,000 Kelvins. Its corona is over 1 million K. A blue star’s temperature, however, can be between 10,000 K to 50,000 K. Type Os are the hottest and bluest and they are 30,000 K and above. Take a look at the star spectral class chart and compare the star types.
So, what if eventually our sun turns into a blue star? First off, the sun will never be able to reach such a hot temperature as a blue star has. If it does, its size and mass will also increase. As the sun ages, its temperature increases, but slowly. The temperature gets hotter by 6% every billion years. Stars create energy through nuclear fusion deep in the core. Nuclear fusion happens in every star’s core. It is when pressure and heat fuse hydrogen atoms together, generating helium and energy, which slowly travels out of the core and out towards the photosphere, the sun’s outer layer, then finally out into space. So, does the sun get hotter and bigger over time? Yes, it does, but very slowly, and it would take billions of years until it affects us humans.
But what if the sun were a blue star all along? Obviously, the blue star is hotter and more massive than our sun, but it is short-lived. A blue star is 10 times the mass of the sun only lasts 1/1000 as long, meaning 10 million years rather than 10 billion years. Life would have much less time to evolve because of the lifespan of the blue star. Planets may not even form because it took more than 10 million years for planets to form in our solar system. Here is a comparison in size, of our sun and a blue star.
If we were able to have a blue star as our sun, though, what would happen to our entire solar system? Mercury and Venus, being closest to the blue star, would be destroyed, along with earth and mars. The gas planets would explode, and there wouldn’t be a solar system. Take a look at a video on summarizing the events that would take place if we were to have a blue star as our sun today.
But life on earth wouldn’t be ideal if we were able to have a blue star as our sun. The star would be much closer to us than the sun would be, and the brightness would be 10,000 times brighter. Earth would be burning hot. The burning kind that would burn us humans and animals alive. Well as for plants and trees, they’d also burn to crisp. Climate change would be more of a problem. The snow would melt more rapidly, and the ocean would boil to steam. Consider the planets were able to form, though, our planets would have to be built 100 times as far away from the star to get the same amount of energy as we do from our sun, as well as the star’s brightness. We would get more UV radiation, making the earth’s surface temperature 10 times hotter (300 K), as hot as the surface of a red giant star.
In conclusion, no matter what, with the intense heat and energy of a blue star, life on earth would not be possible. Even if our solar system were built differently, it would just be way too hot for life on earth. And our solar system will not exist at all.
Works Cited:
Barnett, Amanda. “Sun.” NASA, NASA, 19 Apr. 2022, https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/#otp_read_more.
Bladibla. “Was the Sun Ever a Blue Star in the Early Stages of Its Life?” Physics Forums | Science Articles, Homework Help, Discussion, Physics Forums, 30 Jan. 2005, https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/was-the-sun-ever-a-blue-star-in-the-early-stages-of-its-life.61582/.
S., Sean, and Biddeford. “University of Southern Maine.” “Is the Sun Getting Hotter? If so, Why? Will Earth Eventually Become Too Hot for Life?” | Planetarium | University of Southern Maine, https://usm.maine.edu/planet/sun-getting-hotter-if-so-why-will-earth-eventually-become-too-hot-life#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20becoming%20increasingly,render%20Earth%20inhospitable%20to%20life.
“What If The Sun Was Blue?” Jarred Bronstein, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL2PktGIldU. Accessed 15 May 2022.
Willson, Lee Anne. “What If We Had a Blue Star in Our Solar System Instead of the Current Sun?” Quora, 2017, https://www.quora.com/What-if-we-had-a-blue-star-in-our-Solar-System-instead-of-the-current-Sun/answer/Lee-Anne-Willson-1.
Xan, Invader. “Life under a Blue Sun?” Supernova Condensate, 20 Mar. 2013, https://supernovacondensate.net/2013/03/18/life-under-a-blue-sun/.
Nice work Eugene. I really like how you discussed the many prominent differences if the sun were to be blue.