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The Scientocratic Hivemind has killed the Fire Deity at the cost of erasing the Earth's sun. For the sake of the lifeforms of this Earth before it goes away, it refines the Deity's corpse into a Sun replacement. Now, the eternally burning corpse is big and dense enough to have the same gravity as the Sun and it is as hot and bright(mostly Visible light). It doesn't produce anything else. Essentially, the Fire Deity's corpse is a literal ball of fire and light that gains its energy from some supernatural source, unlike a regular star derived through nuclear processes. Everything else characteristic of a normal star isn't present in the corpse Sun.

From the perspective of the Earth and solar system, would this corpse Sun be an adequate replacement? In other words, does our actual Sun have some other intrinsic quality(which the corpse Sun doesn't have) that's necessary to maintain the integrity of the solar system?

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    $\begingroup$ What do you mean with "equivalent amount of heat and light"? $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Commented Aug 5 at 11:20
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    $\begingroup$ Bright where? Visible? UV? X ray? IR? Radiowave? $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Commented Aug 5 at 11:24
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    $\begingroup$ @L.Dutch Mostly visible $\endgroup$
    – Dmyt
    Commented Aug 5 at 11:28
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    $\begingroup$ Does it make neutrinos? (+ any other particle we've not yet discovered/named?) $\endgroup$
    – Escaped dental patient.
    Commented Aug 6 at 7:02
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    $\begingroup$ Man the push for clean energy has gotten out of control. $\endgroup$
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Aug 6 at 13:59

3 Answers 3

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The solar winds are surprisingly important to the habitability of the solar system, as is the stellar magnetosphere. Without those the interstellar medium, and in particular the charged particles and hard radiation elements of it, would sweep through the solar system unchecked. High energy Cosmic Rays would probably have the most profound effect on habitability as they tend to be extremely ionising.

The lack of local solar wind would extend the lifespan of atmospheres on planets in our solar system because Sol is relatively isolated. In a globular cluster like Omega Centauri the light of other stars would rip the atmospheres off the newly unprotected world(s).

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  • $\begingroup$ Wouldn't the Earth's magnetic field (which would still be present in this scenario) deflect most of the charged cosmic rays? $\endgroup$
    – poncho
    Commented Aug 6 at 13:08
  • $\begingroup$ @poncho No, Earth's magnetosphere doesn't block many of the cosmic rays that come in as it is, they tend to form air showers in the upper atmosphere, these are thought to be part of the reason it often rains heavily when there are solar storms. The uninhibited radiation bombardment might even be enough to weaken the magnetic field. $\endgroup$
    – Ash
    Commented Aug 6 at 13:21
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    $\begingroup$ Is the interstellar medium harsher than the actual solar wind we do face? By roughly what factor? My instinct is that being 8 light minutes from a star means we get more charged particles and hard radiation than we would outside the Sun's magnetosphere, but you're saying precisely the reverse. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Aug 6 at 14:22
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    $\begingroup$ But I suppose it's a question of quantity vs. quality: the Sun gives us tonnes of stuff that Earth's magnetosphere mostly handles, whereas cosmic rays are all from outside the heliosphere. So maybe we prefer the occasional Carrington event to an increase in the steady GCR. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Aug 6 at 14:26
  • $\begingroup$ There is some evidence that 2-3 million years ago the heliosphere may have shunk to expose all the planets for a couple of hundred thousand years. A new study looked at the solar system's path and thinks we might have passed through a cold molecular cloud. There is evidence from multiple studies of Iron-60 around that time that would have been caused by this. I wonder if the absence of the solar wind would strengthen the protection from Earth's own magnetosphere. $\endgroup$
    – Jason Goemaat
    Commented Aug 6 at 17:43
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Whoever observes the sun in a spectral region outside the visible will immediately notice that it has gone dark: no X ray, no UV, no IR, no radio waves, no neutrinos, no solar wind.

You have killed the only legitimate reason for an astronomist to work during the day aside from the muffin at the cafeteria (pun intended) and also all the auroras related tourism industry. I hope your SH has ways of evading their incensement.

Then, after some time, the fact that we have no more solar wind nor solar magnetic field to protect us from the galactic weather will become noticeable, too.

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    $\begingroup$ What's the consequence of having no solar wind or solar magnetic field? Has Voyager given us enough data to know that the cosmic effluvia outside the heliosphere would be a disaster if the solar magnetic field was lost? Although off the top of my head, the only unmentioned intrinsic quality the sun has that the corpse must have is mass (or the magical capability of keeping everything in orbit). $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Aug 5 at 14:06
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    $\begingroup$ I don't think it's fair to interpret "as hot and bright" as "no IR." If there's no IR, it's definitely not "as hot," unless we have compensated by increasing the intensity at other wavelengths (which probably causes other issues). $\endgroup$
    – Kevin
    Commented Aug 5 at 21:55
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    $\begingroup$ @Kevin, it's not an interpretation: it's OP's statement. $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Commented Aug 6 at 2:12
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    $\begingroup$ @L.Dutch: Yes, but qualified with "mostly" and in the same sentence as "as hot." I don't think you can read the whole thing together as "no IR." $\endgroup$
    – Kevin
    Commented Aug 6 at 2:29
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    $\begingroup$ What made you think the replacement sun is much darker outside the visible than the Sun is? Question doesn't say that, it says the corpse emits "mostly" visible light. The Sun emits 42% visible light (most of the rest being infrared). That's after the question was edited; before the edit the question just said the corpse is as hot and bright as the Sun, which again would suggest a similar spectrum to the Sun. And why would a difference in solar spectrum make much difference to astronomers, unless they're solar astronomers? $\endgroup$
    – causative
    Commented Aug 6 at 4:22
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There's a very good reason stars are powered by Fusion, there aren't many reactions in the universe that are powerful enough to sustain a reaction as large as a star.

How big is this deity? If they're pretty big you might be able to turn them into a tiny black hole to slowly eat up the remains of the star and thus provide some level of light/radiation.

But it would still be pretty damn cold and everyone would die.

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  • $\begingroup$ They did use the magic tag, they have all the power they say they do, because they just do. Blackhole mass-energy radiation was my first thought before I saw the details too. $\endgroup$
    – Ash
    Commented Aug 6 at 13:24

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