Nukes vs. Core of a Star

[Jason]

I have a question, and this looks like the best forum to ask it. Which is the more impressive durability feat, surviving a ground zero nuclear blast, or surviving in the center of a star?

Let's take a 50 megaton nuclear blast and the center of earth's sun as the two comparison points.

Also, if the core of the sun is the greater feat, what size nuclear blast would it take to equal it?

This question arises from a discussion about some fictional characters and what their level of durability was. I had originally assumed anyone surviving the center of the sun would easily shrug off a ground zero nuclear blast, but then I read the relative temperatures of the two. The center of the sun seems to be about 15-20million celsius and a ground zero blast can run up to, according to Wiki, several tens of millions celsius, so I wasn't sure.

Anyway, I figured there were plenty of people here who knew a lot more physics than I did who might be able to shine some light here. Thanks a lot in advance!

[Molyneux]

...you're joking, right?

Sol is BIG. It may not be much as stars go, but it's a freakin' STAR! It is BIG and very hot.

The temperatures achieved in a nuclear blast may be comparable to the inside of a sun for a very brief time, but the energy output is not even in the same ballpark. A nuke released within the Sun would have no noticeable effect.

[Admiral Valdemar]

This is a no brainer. Which is a more impressive feat? Surviving me punching you in the face, or surviving Big Bertha blast you at point blank?

[Braedley]

Although once at the center of a star, the gravity is next to zero (it cancels out in all directions), getting there is a different story. Also, once you are there, you still have to worry about the extreem pressure, which it itself would crush you (think bottom of the ocean. Now throw a whole wack of zeros on the end). That's not really a problem in a nuclear blast (assuming you can stay your ground).

[Jason]

I had a feeling it was a dumb question, but just wanted to make sure.

My gut was telling me, when the durability discussion was going on at another board, that anyone who could survive the center of a star would laugh at a nuke. So, this would seem correct.

Now, how large a nuke would it take to come close to replicating the center of the sun?

Also, what about sci-fi weapons like SW turbolasers? If said sun surviving character got hit by a turbolaser from an ISD, would it hurt them or not? And finally how about the Death Star superlaser?

Thanks again, for answering and also for not calling me an idiot in the process!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I have a question, and this looks like the best forum to ask it. Which is the more impressive durability feat, surviving a ground zero nuclear blast, or surviving in the center of a star?

Let's take a 50 megaton nuclear blast and the center of earth's sun as the two comparison points.

Also, if the core of the sun is the greater feat, what size nuclear blast would it take to equal it?

This question arises from a discussion about some fictional characters and what their level of durability was. I had originally assumed anyone surviving the center of the sun would easily shrug off a ground zero nuclear blast, but then I read the relative temperatures of the two. The center of the sun seems to be about 15-20million celsius and a ground zero blast can run up to, according to Wiki, several tens of millions celsius, so I wasn't sure.

Anyway, I figured there were plenty of people here who knew a lot more physics than I did who might be able to shine some light here. Thanks a lot in advance!

Let's do this by energy release:

A 50 MT nuclear weapon releases 2.09E+17 joules of energy in the space of a microsecond.

The Sun releases 4.0E+20 joules of energy in the same amount of time.

A fictional entity capable of shrugging off a nuclear blast will have about 1/2000th the toughness needed to survive the core of a star, in terms of sheer energy release. It gets worse, as while the nuclear blast is over and done with relatively quickly, the Sun just keeps going and going, and going. If the fictional entity were required to survive for a second, then they would need to deal with two billion times the energy release of a fifty megaton nuclear bomb. Conversely, a fictional entity capable of surviving the center of a star will be able to withstand three times the planet's entire Cold War-era nuclear arsenal going off at once . . . provided this fictional entity could withstand the power output of a core of a star for a microsecond.

[Kuroneko]

Let's do this by energy release: A 50 MT nuclear weapon releases 2.09E+17 joules of energy in the space of a microsecond. The Sun releases 4.0E+20 joules of energy in the same amount of time. A fictional entity capable of shrugging off a nuclear blast will have about 1/2000th the toughness needed to survive the core of a star, in terms of sheer energy release.

Er, no. Even going by energy generation, let's not overestimate the stars too much; only the being's immediate vicinity matters. If the solar core is about 1/5 solar radius (1.392e8m), then average core power generation is only 34W/m³; even if it is limited to 1/10 solar radius, it is still at most 140W/m³. That's not exactly impressive. Meanwhile, a 1MT airblast has a radius of 150m at 1ms; if most of the energy is already generated by this time, then the average power generation is 3.0e11W/m³. I would expect a smaller timeframe for the majority of energy generation, so this is likely an underestimate. The answer to the original question depends very strongly on the exposure time and heat conductivity of the being, since the real issue is how much energy the being would actually absorb.

[Ariphaos]

Er, no. Even going by energy generation, let's not overestimate the stars too much; only the being's immediate vicinity matters. If the solar core is about 1/5 solar radius (1.392e8m), then average core power generation is only 34W/m³; even if it is limited to 1/10 solar radius, it is still at most 140W/m³. That's not exactly impressive. Meanwhile, a 1MT airblast has a radius of 150m at 1ms; if most of the energy is already generated by this time, then the average power generation is 3.0e11W/m³. I would expect a smaller timeframe for the majority of energy generation, so this is likely an underestimate. The answer to the original question depends very strongly on the exposure time and heat conductivity of the being, since the real issue is how much energy the being would actually absorb.

Well it's really a question of temperature, isn't it? The nuke gets to a couple of hundred million degrees centigrade for a few nanoseconds, then rapidly cools (at the expense of the surrounding region), while the pressure exerted in our sun (which is among the larger classes of stars, though still a 'yellow dwarf' in comparison to giants like Rigel, Deneb, and so on) is about a tenth of that.

Since humans are capable of withstanding rather extreme concussive forces, I think we can discount the pressure the nuke is going to exert in comparison to the sun's.

Radiation would be similarly lopsided in short-term favor to the nuke, though I'm basing that on rough guess and not equations.

Honestly though, the temperature's we're speaking of break down all molecules. If you have a buffer of some sort, you might hope to survive the nuke. Surviving any sort of extended period (seconds) inside the sun is pure fantasy using normal matter.

[Darth Wong]

Temperature is only relevant insofar as it contributes to heat flux, which is the only important parameter for short-term survival in exposure to this type of hostile environment (we'll just leave aside pressure for now).

Unless you have computed the heat flux in close proximity to a nuke and found it inferior to the heat flux produced inside the Sun's core before concluding that exposure to the Sun is more dangerous than exposure to a nuclear blast, you are just flapping gums, blowing air, and wasting everyones' time with ignorant subjective bullshit.

Even if you've done that, you still need to know the time duration, since a nuclear blast, while far more intense than the Sun's core, is also a pulse event while the Sun is a nearly steady-state reactor.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I wasn't factoring heat into this given a nuke can easily rival the surface of the sun thermally. The pressure alone is what I'd stake as being the deciding factor here. If you could take the thermal pulse from a nuke, you could deal with the sun likely (depending on some variables). But taking the pressure wave of a nuke is not the same as withstanding the pressure of an entire solar core around you.

The temperature thing seems somewhat superfluous given both mediums strip molecules to their basic forms anyway, so magical material is what you're going to be having here.

[tharkûn]

Core of the sun is far more impressive.

Forget about temperature. Think about pressure. The core of the sun has a pressure of around 34 PPa. The maximum pressure reached inside the secondary itself for a thermonuclear device is only around 6 PPa. Further the former is sustained while the latter is extremely transient. For "ground zero" that pressure will be ridiciously less as you will not have superheated ablative pressure to deal with like the secondary will.

It requires orders of magnitude stronger material to survive the sun. Any non-spherical object in the sun has demonstrated that it must be made of pure unobtanium (well at least have an outer shell of such).

[Admiral Valdemar]

Well, yeah, that's how I got to my initial conclusion. But can you find anything on the thermal flux of the solar core? I can find data on nukes from neutron flux up to H-bomb thermal properties, but nothing on Sol. May as well see if the sun has a real difference in that as well.

[Darth Wong]

Given that we're obviously talking about a fictional material, it would have to be physically stronger in order to withstand the pressure of the Sun's core, but it would need far greater thermal capacitance in order to withstand the heat flux near a nuclear blast. Either case is basically impossible, so it's rather difficult to say what kind of material could withstand either situation, never mind both.

[NoXion]

What about hyperdense objects such as white dwarfs and pulsars? What would happen to them if magically teleported into the core of the sun?

[tharkûn]

What about hyperdense objects such as white dwarfs and pulsars? What would happen to them if magically teleported into the core of the sun?

They, being balls of dense matter, would condense into slightly denser balls of matter.

[Sriad]

What about hyperdense objects such as white dwarfs and pulsars? What would happen to them if magically teleported into the core of the sun?

They would survive and remain recognisable, but the sun might not. A well recorded type of nova involves binary star systems where one member is a neutron star. The NS will pull fuel off the surface of the partner star, and once it reaches a critical level (something like 1/50 of an inch or something) the pressure within the material is great enough that fusion happens over the surface of the NS. Inside the sun, this would happen pretty much continuously, so we end up with the sun burning muuuch faster and brighter, or else quickly collapsing into a black hole.

(for the record, being able to survive on the surface of a neutron star is a much more impressive feat than nuke or core of sun)

[drachefly]

Also, it kind of depends what you did to the center of the star that was the destination of the teleport. Did you swap them?

Or did you make the old star expand from nothingness in the center of our star (using a wormhole in violation of the usual rules of GR)? How fast did this occur?

etc.

[Molyneux]

What about hyperdense objects such as white dwarfs and pulsars? What would happen to them if magically teleported into the core of the sun?

They would survive and remain recognisable, but the sun might not. A well recorded type of nova involves binary star systems where one member is a neutron star. The NS will pull fuel off the surface of the partner star, and once it reaches a critical level (something like 1/50 of an inch or something) the pressure within the material is great enough that fusion happens over the surface of the NS. Inside the sun, this would happen pretty much continuously, so we end up with the sun burning muuuch faster and brighter, or else quickly collapsing into a black hole.

(for the record, being able to survive on the surface of a neutron star is a much more impressive feat than nuke or core of sun)

Yeah, that neutronium is heavy stuff...a single pound of it weighs over five thousand pounds

[Sriad]

A pound of neutronium only weighs 10^-11 pounds.

(assuming the first weighing is @ the neutron star and the second on Earth.)