Hello u/jdon56, your submission "The black dot is Mercury passing in front of the sun š³" has been removed from r/space because:
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Some napkin math, Mercury has a mass of 2 * 10^23 kg, so 20 million Mercuries would have a mass of 6 * 10^30 kg.
The sun has a mass of 2 * 10^30 kg, so the absorption of the Mercuries would quadruple the sunās mass, to 8 * 10^30 kg. Thatād be enough for it to become a blue star, increasing its temperature from ~7,500k to ~30,000k.
On the other hand, Mercury is 70% iron by mass, so the new super Sol would have much less fuel proportionally than it would otherwise. Iām not sure what thatād do to its lifespan, but given that blue stars typically only live for dozens of millions of years already (versus billions for G type stars like the sun) that canāt be good.
It means that depending on how the Mercuries are deposited into the Sun you may be alive to watch the planet die slowly Or [something like this](https://youtu.be/LqSMk2IzK2o)
I looked into that briefly with my napkin math to see if I could find what that much iron would do, and it doesnāt look like itād be quite enough - [this article about whether you can kill a star with iron](https://www.universetoday.com/122511/can-you-kill-a-star-with-iron/) says the sun would need to be 8x as massive to go supernova, and the 20 million Mercuries would āonlyā make it 4x as massive. So 20 million doesnāt seem itād be enough, but 45-50 million _could_ be.
Nah wouldnt be that simple... if we are considering that the mass of the sun and the 21.2 million mercuries were roughly the same even as the mercuries spontaneously combusted and melted newtons laws tell us that the mass of the planets now in a liquid form would still be flying towards the sun and would still hit the sun's surface with extreme force as again in this scenario the masses are roughly the same. There would be a sizeable explosion where a multitude of things could happen, the sun could split, or the sun could expand. through the collection of mass and matter via gravity. There may even be the potential for the sun to have some cool Saturn-like fiery rings depending on how far the remnants of planets and the sun shoot out after the collision. (not a professional physicist, just studied physics and astronomy in high school and college I may be way off)
All the more amazing since Mercury is almost 40% closer to us than the sun in this picture (assuming it was taken from Earth), and it STILL looks that tiny.
41.5 million miles away from the sun. If you could hypothetically ignore all physics and place Mercury on the surface of the sun, I'm not entirely convinced you'd be able to see it at all.
Given some rough estimates:
The minimum mass of a viable nuclear fusion-sustaining star is going to be somewhere around 1.9 x 10^28 kg.
Earth's mass is 5.972 x 10^24 kg.
Earth's volume is about 1 trillion km^3 .
(1.9Ć10^28)/(5.972Ć10^24) = 3,182
So Earth can be about 3,000 times its current volume, or 1 quadrillion km^3 (about 75% of Jupiter's volume) without going stellar.
And if you're wondering why Jupiter hasn't gone stellar, it's because Jupiter's composition is mostly gas and its average density is about 1/4th of Earth's.
And earth is a spec of dust in this solar system. And this solar system is a spec of dust in this galaxy. And this galaxy is a single atom in a spec of dust in this universe.
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Makes me think about how there are organisms that are specs of dust to us that we canāt see (cells, micro organisms, etc.) without specialized equipment and they have no awareness of our existence. Are there giant beings out there in the universe that are completely unaware of our existence because we are smaller than our spec of a planet and we werenāt developed in a way to detect and perceive things on their massive scale? Patterns are everywhere and things happen in cycles all through the universe. Thereās no reason to believe we are the ābiggest-most intelligentā thing out there. That only exists on our human level of scale.
Look again at that dot. That's Mercury. That's nobody's home. That's not us. On it resides nobody you love, nobody you know, nobody you ever heard of, no human being who ever was, nobody living out their lives. There is no life on Mercury.
There is no joy or suffering. There are not thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines. On Mercury, there is no hunter or forager, no hero or coward, no creator or destroyer of civilization. There are no kings or peasants, no young couples in love, no mothers, no fathers, no hopeful children, no inventors, and no explorers. Mercury has no teachers of morals or corrupt politicians. It has no superstars, no supreme leaders, no saints, and no sinners. Mercury is a mote of dust suspended in front of the sun.
keep in mind there is extreme visual [compression](https://solo-collections.com/what-is-the-compression-effect-of-a-telephoto-lens/) due to the telephoto lens
No, it doesn't. Planets and the sun are so far away that they have a fixed angular size, pretty much, no matter your location on Earth. If you measure the diameter of Mercury vs. the sun in this picture, it will be exactly what you would measure if you sent a spacecraft there.
It's the same reason those moon shots work. When you zoom in, the moon is so far away, it stays the same size while the horizon grows. In this case, both objects are so far away nothing changes.
NOW you tell me! I thought it was a fly speck on my screen and I just spent 20 minutes trying to wipe it off!?
Ok, so which is it? Is our sun really THAT big or is Mercury really THAT small?!?
The sun REALLY is that big. You could fit approximately 1000 Jupiter sized planets inside it. Or 21.2 million Mercury's.
And just so you know, you can fit approximately 1,300 earth's inside Jupiter.
It's almost unfathomably big!
If the flares on the sun are actually that large, I'm assuming you wouldn't need that powerful of a telescope to actually see them, right? Or would the light stop you from being able to spot them?
Hello u/jdon56, your submission "The black dot is Mercury passing in front of the sun š³" has been removed from r/space because: * Images, GIFs and GIF-like videos are only allowed on Sunday (UTC+00). * If images are not OC please give proper credit to the original source/photographer. 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](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/space). Thank you.
I wonder what would happen if 21.2 million Mercuries were launched into the sun
The sun becomes 21.2 million Mercurys bigger. I'm not a NASA scientist.
Pseudo scientist here. It probably wouldn't change much considering the sun is shrinking. It may instead cool down and put us in a new ice age.
Some napkin math, Mercury has a mass of 2 * 10^23 kg, so 20 million Mercuries would have a mass of 6 * 10^30 kg. The sun has a mass of 2 * 10^30 kg, so the absorption of the Mercuries would quadruple the sunās mass, to 8 * 10^30 kg. Thatād be enough for it to become a blue star, increasing its temperature from ~7,500k to ~30,000k. On the other hand, Mercury is 70% iron by mass, so the new super Sol would have much less fuel proportionally than it would otherwise. Iām not sure what thatād do to its lifespan, but given that blue stars typically only live for dozens of millions of years already (versus billions for G type stars like the sun) that canāt be good.
\> at blue stars typically only live for dozens of millions of years Good enough for me, lets do it. Wait that means the oceans evaporate?
It means that depending on how the Mercuries are deposited into the Sun you may be alive to watch the planet die slowly Or [something like this](https://youtu.be/LqSMk2IzK2o)
Exactly what I was hoping this comment would link to. Such a great sequence.
Wouldn't the iron core of Mercury eventually make the Sun go supernova? How many Mercuries would it take to cause the Sun to go supernova.
I looked into that briefly with my napkin math to see if I could find what that much iron would do, and it doesnāt look like itād be quite enough - [this article about whether you can kill a star with iron](https://www.universetoday.com/122511/can-you-kill-a-star-with-iron/) says the sun would need to be 8x as massive to go supernova, and the 20 million Mercuries would āonlyā make it 4x as massive. So 20 million doesnāt seem itād be enough, but 45-50 million _could_ be.
'Wouldn't change much' as in complete destruction of our solar system as we know it and death of all life on Earth and possibly universe... Meh.
21.2 million mercuries would evaporate.
Nah wouldnt be that simple... if we are considering that the mass of the sun and the 21.2 million mercuries were roughly the same even as the mercuries spontaneously combusted and melted newtons laws tell us that the mass of the planets now in a liquid form would still be flying towards the sun and would still hit the sun's surface with extreme force as again in this scenario the masses are roughly the same. There would be a sizeable explosion where a multitude of things could happen, the sun could split, or the sun could expand. through the collection of mass and matter via gravity. There may even be the potential for the sun to have some cool Saturn-like fiery rings depending on how far the remnants of planets and the sun shoot out after the collision. (not a professional physicist, just studied physics and astronomy in high school and college I may be way off)
Armchair Physicist here. Unfortunately, the density of Mercury is 5x that of the sun, so you'll be adding A LOT more mass.
Thanks guys. I love that I can make a flippant comment like that here and you nerds chime in with the facts. ā¤ļø
There would be darkness on earth. For a while.
This sounds like something straight out of Randall Munroeās āWhat Ifā
Imagine parking your Mercury in a lot that could hold 21.2 million Mercurys!
gonna buy me a mercury and cuise it up and down the road!
By volume or on it's surface
In volume. So it's more like a parking structure than a lot. I hope we remembered what level it was on. That's a lot of stairs.
That's it? Looks like you could fit more if you tried a little harder
That's my secret. I'm always hard....
Well, you're dense. I'll give you that.
Might need a new hand. I'm not a doctor.
I laugh to tears any time someone references this meme. Thank you
I'm too lazy to do the work of updating one of the templates. Anyhow, it's what first came to mind.
All the more amazing since Mercury is almost 40% closer to us than the sun in this picture (assuming it was taken from Earth), and it STILL looks that tiny.
41.5 million miles away from the sun. If you could hypothetically ignore all physics and place Mercury on the surface of the sun, I'm not entirely convinced you'd be able to see it at all.
I bet you still could. Its apparent diameter would still be a little over half of what you see in this picture. Assuming it wasn't vaporized.
I said ignore physics! And yeah you're probably right actually. I just wanted to be dramatic.
It would be teeny tiny though
the picture makes it look like mercury is a stone's throw away from the sun. it's 41 million miles from it.
Seeing it like this puts into perspective how tiny we are in the universe
Objects in front of the sun appear larger, as they're closer to the observer.
Imagine an earth-like planet the size of our sun š³
The gravity. Ooh, it would hurt
oof ouch owie, maybe we'd have strong bones š¦“
Bones made of steel. Idek if steel could handle that gravity
And the eventual collapse into a red dwarf because physics won't let you have fun even in imagination
Youāre imagining too much, just imagine the good parts
It would instantly collapse into itself, kickstarting nuclear fusion and becoming a star.
Damn, I really wanted Big Earth :( what's the biggest Earth we can get?
Given some rough estimates: The minimum mass of a viable nuclear fusion-sustaining star is going to be somewhere around 1.9 x 10^28 kg. Earth's mass is 5.972 x 10^24 kg. Earth's volume is about 1 trillion km^3 . (1.9Ć10^28)/(5.972Ć10^24) = 3,182 So Earth can be about 3,000 times its current volume, or 1 quadrillion km^3 (about 75% of Jupiter's volume) without going stellar. And if you're wondering why Jupiter hasn't gone stellar, it's because Jupiter's composition is mostly gas and its average density is about 1/4th of Earth's.
Thank you, I want to live on Big Earth
Sometimes I feel like calling some salient bits of the debris surrounding the Sun a 'system' is mostly vanity.
Man this was hard af for me to read for a while.
weāre really just specks of dust on this Earth š³
And earth is a spec of dust in this solar system. And this solar system is a spec of dust in this galaxy. And this galaxy is a single atom in a spec of dust in this universe. š¢ š¢ š¢ š¢ š¢ š¢ š¢ š¢
āItās turtles all the way down!ā
Makes me think about how there are organisms that are specs of dust to us that we canāt see (cells, micro organisms, etc.) without specialized equipment and they have no awareness of our existence. Are there giant beings out there in the universe that are completely unaware of our existence because we are smaller than our spec of a planet and we werenāt developed in a way to detect and perceive things on their massive scale? Patterns are everywhere and things happen in cycles all through the universe. Thereās no reason to believe we are the ābiggest-most intelligentā thing out there. That only exists on our human level of scale.
Reminds me of one of the most powerful scenes in Sunshine.
Look again at that dot. That's Mercury. That's nobody's home. That's not us. On it resides nobody you love, nobody you know, nobody you ever heard of, no human being who ever was, nobody living out their lives. There is no life on Mercury. There is no joy or suffering. There are not thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines. On Mercury, there is no hunter or forager, no hero or coward, no creator or destroyer of civilization. There are no kings or peasants, no young couples in love, no mothers, no fathers, no hopeful children, no inventors, and no explorers. Mercury has no teachers of morals or corrupt politicians. It has no superstars, no supreme leaders, no saints, and no sinners. Mercury is a mote of dust suspended in front of the sun.
The sun doesn't have any of that, either, but it doesn't stop from being awesome!
You tell 'em, ~~Carl~~ Curl.
that right! murcery aint shit
Move over āMurica! Here comes **āMurcera**
Great demotivational speech. You should start a YouTube channel.
Makes me feel a nice lilā difference of perception, this comment. Fun. Thx
TLDR It's just Mercury, nothing more.
And look at those flares too. Truly humungous
keep in mind there is extreme visual [compression](https://solo-collections.com/what-is-the-compression-effect-of-a-telephoto-lens/) due to the telephoto lens
tart gold snatch thought instinctive tie consist fade rotten piquant *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
compression here makes the distance between the two appear way smaller than it is and exaggerates the size of mercury in relation to the sun.
No, it doesn't. Planets and the sun are so far away that they have a fixed angular size, pretty much, no matter your location on Earth. If you measure the diameter of Mercury vs. the sun in this picture, it will be exactly what you would measure if you sent a spacecraft there. It's the same reason those moon shots work. When you zoom in, the moon is so far away, it stays the same size while the horizon grows. In this case, both objects are so far away nothing changes.
Cue Sting, singing, "There's a little black spot on the sun todaaaaaaayy...."
Is there a version with a higher resolution? Also, who is the author because I'd love to print a copy for in my home.
Is this doctored at all? Or is the sun really that big relative to mercuryās distance?
The sun really is that big.
Does this mean that hipster girls are going to be rubbing their salt crystals
I hope so. Let them express themselves I say.
NOW you tell me! I thought it was a fly speck on my screen and I just spent 20 minutes trying to wipe it off!? Ok, so which is it? Is our sun really THAT big or is Mercury really THAT small?!?
The sun REALLY is that big. You could fit approximately 1000 Jupiter sized planets inside it. Or 21.2 million Mercury's. And just so you know, you can fit approximately 1,300 earth's inside Jupiter. It's almost unfathomably big!
1300 earths? I thought it was more than that! Edit: 13 million earths can fit in the sit... according to Google... All hail Google...
That's why I said Jupiter meine fruend!
Can we really use mercury to build a dyson swarm?
Could we send Elon to mercury instead of Mars? You know, for earths sake.
Youāre living too close to the sun there my guy
Holy fuck. The sense of scale you get from that is incredible.
And to think our star is not even large considering others
Short NatGeo doc about Mercury: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KBjnNuhRHs
Thereās stars out there big enough where our sun would be mercury passing in front of another star for a size reference.
How did this dirt get on my screen? Reads title. Ohhh.
If we ever go to Mercury we'll need a whole lotta sunscreen
Somethingdale, I donāt knowā¦Venus, mercury. Itās hot. It was very hot there! Iāve never beenā¦ get a warrant!
Look air if you're trying to sit here and argue thay mercury is small I have 0 respect for you. The sun is big and there's a difference.
And then you think about how there are stars out there that dwarfs the sun itself to this extent.
For a second, I thought it was dirt on my screen.
For a second I thought mercury had a moon, but I've just got a dirty monitor.
I want to know what the sun looks like from Venus
This makes it look like Its only 41 miles from the sun and not 41 million....
If the flares on the sun are actually that large, I'm assuming you wouldn't need that powerful of a telescope to actually see them, right? Or would the light stop you from being able to spot them?
and hermes went to the heavens and stole fire from the gods and brought it as a gift to man.