What will happen if I do this?

[kilopi505]

What will happen if I make 1 portal in the sun, and the other end of the portal is right next to an enemy ship. Will the ship get pulled in through the portal, into the sun? Or will plasma go out the other way and fry the enemy ship?

And will this tactic destroy any ship from any kind of fiction? Oh, and the portal is 500 meters in diameter.

[Lagmonster]

You might need to specify what kind of "portal" you're talking about. If it's specific sci-fi technology (say, a Stargate), that franchise likely has rules you can use to form an answer.

Of course, if you're just talking about creating a situation physically equivalent to the enemy ship suddenly appearing next to a star, that's probably easier to solve.

[Tritio]

Isn't there enormous pressure in the Sun? If you create a portal inside of it with magic, I would think you'd have a lot of stuff coming out the other side.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

What will happen if I make 1 portal in the sun, and the other end of the portal is right next to an enemy ship. Will the ship get pulled in through the portal, into the sun? Or will plasma go out the other way and fry the enemy ship?

And will this tactic destroy any ship from any kind of fiction? Oh, and the portal is 500 meters in diameter.

Please specify what sort of "portal" you are nattering on about. What are its properties? i.e. does it exert any sort of force on surrounding objects? Furthermore, please describe the properties of the ship you wish to open this magic gaping asshole in the fabric of reality next to. A Space Shuttle being subjected to a sudden plasma bath will react differently to a Star Destroyer being subjected to the same plasma bath. Also, please tell us where in the sun the magic gaping asshole in the fabric of reality is being opened into. Opening it in the Sun's corona will have a vastly different effect from opening it in, say, the Sun's core.

[B5B7]

Most portals in fiction don't exert any force - you have to choose to go through them by your own motive power. In addition, some of them require that you open or activate them, like the SGC type stargates previously mentioned. Also, some operate only in one direction, or if capable of operating in both dierections only one at a time, again with the SGC stargate have to choose which direction they are operating (via which end is dialling it up).

[Sarevok]

What will happen if I make 1 portal in the sun, and the other end of the portal is right next to an enemy ship. Will the ship get pulled in through the portal, into the sun? Or will plasma go out the other way and fry the enemy ship?

And will this tactic destroy any ship from any kind of fiction? Oh, and the portal is 500 meters in diameter.

Is this question related to the Farscape episode where Crichton destroyed a Scarran ship using a wormhole and the local star?

[kilopi505]

What will happen if I make 1 portal in the sun, and the other end of the portal is right next to an enemy ship. Will the ship get pulled in through the portal, into the sun? Or will plasma go out the other way and fry the enemy ship?

And will this tactic destroy any ship from any kind of fiction? Oh, and the portal is 500 meters in diameter.

Please specify what sort of "portal" you are nattering on about. What are its properties? i.e. does it exert any sort of force on surrounding objects? Furthermore, please describe the properties of the ship you wish to open this magic gaping asshole in the fabric of reality next to. A Space Shuttle being subjected to a sudden plasma bath will react differently to a Star Destroyer being subjected to the same plasma bath. Also, please tell us where in the sun the magic gaping asshole in the fabric of reality is being opened into. Opening it in the Sun's corona will have a vastly different effect from opening it in, say, the Sun's core.

The sort of portal I'm thinking of are of those from "Portal", the video game, the one whose protagonist is named Chell, with the computer AI GLaDOS as antagonist. And that's why I just said the sun. I don't know what the effects would be if I open it in a particular layer of the sun. Please enlighten me on what would happen in one particular layer, and also including phenomenon that only occurs on the sun or a star.

[kilopi505]

What will happen if I make 1 portal in the sun, and the other end of the portal is right next to an enemy ship. Will the ship get pulled in through the portal, into the sun? Or will plasma go out the other way and fry the enemy ship?

And will this tactic destroy any ship from any kind of fiction? Oh, and the portal is 500 meters in diameter.

Is this question related to the Farscape episode where Crichton destroyed a Scarran ship using a wormhole and the local star?

Nope. This idea came about from Puella Magi Magica Madoka, and the Battle Fantasia thread on Spacebattles.com.

[Sriad]

Very far from "any" ship, but it would be pretty powerful. If you just teleport a 500m sphere of fusing hydrogen from near the core you've effectively got a 62,800,000,000,000 kg H-bomb. As long as I haven't misplaced any zeroes you're looking at about 8.792 × 10^21 joules, or 2.1 teratons, plus whatever kinetic energy you get from decompressing the moderately degenerate matter.

If you can keep it open more than a couple microseconds it'll be substantially higher, but I don't know how I'd go about calculating that.

[Simon_Jester]

"Portal" portals are directional, so it's a bit more complicated: in essence, you've got stellar conditions on the other side of a door, and the ship on the other.

Unless it's made out of some ludicrously impressive unobtanium, it's gonna get fried. The rate of frying depends on all sorts of wonky details that we'd need an astrophysicist to go into, but it's gonna get fried.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think the result would be similar to a coronal mass ejection, only smaller, more focused but higher energy, depending on where it opens.

If the portal opens in the photosphere, you'll get a torrent of 6000K plasma

If it opens in the core, you'll get about a million tonnes of 16 million K semi-plasma/semi-degenerate fusing hydrogen. Kinda a big difference between those two.

[Darth Tedious]

The thought occurs: If you were sustain the portal for a length of time (from the core of the star), how much of the star's guts could be spewed forth into space before the star starts being affected? And can anyone work out at what rate (assuming a Sol-like star) this would happen?

[Sarevok]

It may be worthwhile look at binary star systems where one pair member has become a blackhole for answer to your question. To my knowledge most scifi portals/stargates/wormholes are small in diameter and do not compare to the sheer size of the filament of matter a blackhole draws from a nearby star. Stars can endure for millions of years in such conditions so in a scifi setting opening a portal is not going to kill a star within a meaningful length of time.

[kilopi505]

Ok, so any ship is toast. Thanks for the answers... umm, how about if the ship is shielded? And what about ships from fiction? Like an ISD, or Kilrathi ships, WH40K, X-COM, and more?

[kilopi505]

Very far from "any" ship, but it would be pretty powerful. If you just teleport a 500m sphere of fusing hydrogen from near the core you've effectively got a 62,800,000,000,000 kg H-bomb. As long as I haven't misplaced any zeroes you're looking at about 8.792 × 10^21 joules, or 2.1 teratons, plus whatever kinetic energy you get from decompressing the moderately degenerate matter.

If you can keep it open more than a couple microseconds it'll be substantially higher, but I don't know how I'd go about calculating that.

The person who made the portal can keep the portal open indefinitely. And...can the person use the portal as a sort of space flamethrower? Is it viable?

[Darth Tedious]

The person who made the portal can keep the portal open indefinitely. And...can the person use the portal as a sort of space flamethrower? Is it viable?

As has been said, if the portal is in the core of the star, the pressure on the other side should cause an awful lot of plasma to vomit forth- hells yeah, you could use it as a space flamethrower!

Ok, so any ship is toast. Thanks for the answers... umm, how about if the ship is shielded? And what about ships from fiction? Like an ISD, or Kilrathi ships, WH40K, X-COM, and more?

I can't speak for too many franchises here, but I'd be very confident the ISD would be roasted. I would be willing to stick my neck out and say that most ships (from most universes) would not be able to withstand the kind of scorching we're talking about, without exceptional technobabble armour (a la Sun Crusher) or exceptional technobabble shields (what was that lovely one-hit wonder shield from TNG called? It was used on a shuttlecraft for solar research...).

It may be worthwhile look at binary star systems where one pair member has become a blackhole for answer to your question. To my knowledge most scifi portals/stargates/wormholes are small in diameter and do not compare to the sheer size of the filament of matter a blackhole draws from a nearby star. Stars can endure for millions of years in such conditions so in a scifi setting opening a portal is not going to kill a star within a meaningful length of time.

I was thinking it might happen faster, given that instead of matter being drawn from the surface of the star, it is coming from the core, and thus being pushed out under the star's internal pressure (a balloon being untied is the analogy coming to mind).

[Eternal_Freedom]

It would have to be open for an absurdly long time for effects to be noticeable. The Sun loses about 4 million tonnes per second just from the usual fusion process.

So, taking away the mass won't be the problem. What might give you problems it suddenly venting the pressure in the core, that is allowing fusion to take place and also balancing the inwards pull of the star's gravity. That could show effects after a while, but (I don't know, but based on the sheer size) I'd have to say it would take years.

So if you could do this, it would be an effective weapon.

[bilateralrope]

Ok, so any ship is toast. Thanks for the answers... umm, how about if the ship is shielded? And what about ships from fiction? Like an ISD, or Kilrathi ships, WH40K, X-COM, and more?

Culture ships are capable of hiding within a star. So I'd expect one of them to survive for long enough to get out of the way, especially since they can react extremely quickly. Fast enough that they might be able to dodge the plasma jet even if their first warning is the portal opening.

[madd0ct0r]

if it's a 'Portal' style portal, you can only fire it at what you can see, and only attach it to an appropriate wall.

unless you place the portal on a wall and punt the wall into the sun...

the game is unclear on what happens if the wall around the portal is destroyed while it is open.

[doom3607]

My guess would have to be Bad Things happen. Of course, it could just be that the Portal closes. Then again, and I'm just coming up with an insane worst-case here, the portal might need the wall to contain exponential growth, so without the wall it expands infinitely along its plane. That would be... interesting. Particularly if it intersected its other end. That would be bad.

[bilateralrope]

if it's a 'Portal' style portal, you can only fire it at what you can see, and only attach it to an appropriate wall.

unless you place the portal on a wall and punt the wall into the sun...

the game is unclear on what happens if the wall around the portal is destroyed while it is open.

Portals can only be places on stationary surfaces. If the surface moves, the portal closes. So unless you can destroy the surface without triggering the close-on-move effect, the portal simply closes.