The Sun: A Ball of..... Liquid???


unixknight
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http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014APS..MARY15002R

The idea is that the notion of the Sun being entirely made of gas/plasma comes from older science that was based on some faulty information.  So is this correction accurate?  And if so, how far will the impact be in astronomy?

From https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/2827-the-liquid-sun/
 

Now that liquid metallic hydrogen has been advanced as a solar building block, it is likely that opposition will be raised, for many will foresee unsettling changes in astronomy. A liquid Sun brings into question our understanding of nearly every facet of this science:




So I guess this would be pretty huge...

Edited by unixknight
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5 minutes ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

Is this proven or just a theory that the sun is liquid metallic hydrogen?

Apparently the problem is that existing theories are based on mathematical equations that (according to Prof. Robitaille) are faulty.  Re-running the numbers results in very different results... So it's not like a new theory is competing with the old ones... It's that, if this scientist is correct, the entire body of knowledge we thought we had is invalid and we'd have to start over.

Edited by unixknight
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1 hour ago, unixknight said:

adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014APS..MARY15002R

The idea is that the notion of the Sun being entirely made of gas/plasma comes from older science that was based on some faulty information.  So is this correction accurate?  And if so, how far will the impact be in astronomy?

From https://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/thread/2827-the-liquid-sun/
 

Now that liquid metallic hydrogen has been advanced as a solar building block, it is likely that opposition will be raised, for many will foresee unsettling changes in astronomy. A liquid Sun brings into question our understanding of nearly every facet of this science:

So I guess this would be pretty huge...

I don't see how. I'm not even sure how this qualifies as news. It has been known for centuries that the sun's average density is about the same as carbon, which led some of generations past to wonder if the sun was not just a huge cinder of burning coal. Clearly, a gas or plasma is far less dense than coal. Also clearly, the sun cannot be a "solid" in any normal sense of the word. So what's dense like a solid, but not, y'know, solid? A liquid.

Can highly compressed hydrogen ions (aka protons) and helium nuclei be compressed to a density that resembles terrestrial solids? Obviously, the answer is yes. I mean, there's the sun. What does that look like? Does it make sense to talk about something with the density of a solid or liquid being a "gas"? Plasma is sort of ionized gas, right? But plasma as we generally think of it isn't dense.

So in the end, I guess I'm just exposing my own ignorance in asking: How is this news?

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I guess the difference between a liquid and a gas is not merely the density. Gas molecules are not bound to each other, or are perhaps very weakly bound, while liquid molecules exhibit a lot of cohesion. If you compress e.g. CO2 a lot at an elevated temperature, you can get a liquid-density substance that isn't properly a liquid or a gas. I guess that's what they're saying here; the superhot, supercompressed hydrogen nuclei must exhibit cohesion that allows them to be classified as a liquid and not just a highly compressed gas. Best guess here.

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2 minutes ago, Vort said:

So in the end, I guess I'm just exposing my own ignorance in asking: How is this news?

I think the second linked article can probably answer better than I can:

Quote

from stellar structure and evolution, the existence of black holes, the primordial atom, dark energy, and dark matter. It is not easy to abandon familiar ideas and begin anew.

 

However, some scientists will realize that a liquid metallic hydrogen model of the Sun, not only opens new avenues, but it also unifies much of human knowledge into a cohesive and elegant framework. A liquid metallic Sun invites astronomy to revisit the days of Kirchhoff and Stewart, and to recall the powerful lessons learned from studying the thermal emission of materials. It emphasizes that our telescopes observe structural realities and not illusions.

 

In recognizing the full character of these structures, all of the great solar astronomers from Galileo, to Secchi, to Hale are honored. These observers knew that solar structures (granules, sunspots, pores, flares, prominences, etc. . . ) were manifesting something profound about nature.

 

For astrophysicists, the Sun imparts lessons which may well have direct applications for mankind. For instance, the solar body holds the key to fusion. If the Sun is made from condensed matter, then our experiments should focus on this state. Sunspots may also guard the secret to synthesizing metallic hydrogen on Earth. If sunspots are truly metallic, as reflected by their magnetic fields, then attempts to form liquid metallic hydrogen on Earth might benefit from the presence of magnetic fields. Our analysis of the photospheric constitution and the continuous thermal spectrum should be trying to tell us something about liquids and their long range order.

A lot of our knowledge about how things in the universe work are based on the math that tells us that the Sun is a ball of gas... but if that math is faulty, then the conclusions we've been drawing about astronomical bodies since 1865 have also been faulty.  

 

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2 hours ago, unixknight said:

The idea is that the notion of the Sun being entirely made of gas/plasma comes from older science that was based on some faulty information.  So is this correction accurate?  And if so, how far will the impact be in astronomy?

Interesting. 

Didn't we already know that the center of the sun was solid and then some?  Fusion occurs at the center of a star due to gravitational attraction being so high.  So, why wouldn't the sun have some solid matter?  Gravitational forces alone would require that the core be solid, wouldn't it?

40 minutes ago, Vort said:

I guess the difference between a liquid and a gas is not merely the density. Gas molecules are not bound to each other, or are perhaps very weakly bound, while liquid molecules exhibit a lot of cohesion. If you compress e.g. CO2 a lot at an elevated temperature, you can get a liquid-density substance that isn't properly a liquid or a gas. I guess that's what they're saying here; the superhot, supercompressed hydrogen nuclei must exhibit cohesion that allows them to be classified as a liquid and not just a highly compressed gas. Best guess here.

Not all liquids do that in the same manner that water does.  And we all know water is an outlier.

Take glass...  That's a solid that translates, rotates, and vibrates.  But it's an outlier.

Then we have the stuff in between.

We don't really have a lot of experience with solid hydrogen. It's only in laboratory settings where things are highly controlled.  It would seem likely that in non-laboratory settings, we'd find some previously unknown properties and behavior.

It just seems that if fusion is imminent, then chances are, it's a solid.

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4 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Interesting. 

Didn't we already know that the center of the sun was solid and then some?  Fusion occurs at the center of a star due to gravitational attraction being so high.  So, why wouldn't the sun have some solid matter?  Gravitational forces alone would require that the core be solid, wouldn't it?

As I've been reading one of the papers published by Prof. Robitaille, it seems that if the Sun really is condensed matter (liquid), then its density would be the same throughout the entire star, as it would be composed of an uncompressible liquid.  Further, fusion reactions would be taking place regardless of radial position.  

I haven't read the whole paper though, so I don't know all the details.  

Liquid Metallic Hydrogen: Building Block of a Liquid Sun

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34 minutes ago, unixknight said:

As I've been reading one of the papers published by Prof. Robitaille, it seems that if the Sun really is condensed matter (liquid), then its density would be the same throughout the entire star, as it would be composed of an uncompressible liquid.  Further, fusion reactions would be taking place regardless of radial position.  

I haven't read the whole paper though, so I don't know all the details.  

Liquid Metallic Hydrogen: Building Block of a Liquid Sun

The final sentence of the abstract: "Although other proofs exist for a liquid photosphere, our focus remains solidly on the generation of this light."

I like this guy. Anyone who works such an excellent pun into his abstract deserves Nobel Prize consideration.

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Progress in Physics appears to be an "alternative physics" journal dedicated to the publication of non-mainstream papers that otherwise might not see the light of day. Dr. Robitaille is a professor of radiology, not of physics. His physics theories are decidedly non-mainstream, and it seems his conclusions are rejected by the larger scientific body. Just FYI.

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1 hour ago, unixknight said:

As I've been reading one of the papers published by Prof. Robitaille, it seems that if the Sun really is condensed matter (liquid), then its density would be the same throughout the entire star, as it would be composed of an uncompressible liquid.  Further, fusion reactions would be taking place regardless of radial position.  

I haven't read the whole paper though, so I don't know all the details.  

Liquid Metallic Hydrogen: Building Block of a Liquid Sun

Even "incompressible" liquids are compressible.

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Jupiter has a metallic Hydrogen liquid core.

Eugene Wigner and Hillard Bell Huntington predicted that under an immense pressure of around 25 GPa (250,000 atm; 3,600,000 psi) hydrogen would display metallicproperties: instead of discrete H2 molecules (which consist of two electrons bound between two protons), a bulk phase would form with a solid lattice of protons and the electrons delocalized throughout.[2] Since then, producing metallic hydrogen in the laboratory has been described as "...the holy grail of high-pressure physics."[4]

2762AD7C-27DA-487D-B444-B25693C73CB1.thumb.png.0eca1402a942e9fab6dfea89a59074cb.png

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.space.com/41751-jupiter-weird-magnetic-field-even-weirder.html

 

The average density of the sun is 1.4 g/cm, but the core density is 168 g/cm (modeled).  The density of Gold is 19.3 g/cm.

We like to think of things as if they are something we can recognize.  When we talk about gases, liquids, solids, we understand then as objects that we currently interact with.

But the Sun is not like the surface of the Earth.  And the density of the Sun would be much, MUCH greater if the thermonuclear fusion forces were not causing the expansion of the sun.  The current radius of the Sun is balanced by the force of gravity fighting against the expansive force of ☢️ fusion.

 

Bottom line, we don’t know.

 

Edited by mikbone
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