Star Collides with Earth!

[Gideon]

'Scuse the dumb question but …

If a star collided with the earth what would happen? Would the earth survive the impact or would planet earth completely disintegrate? I'm not a rocket scientist and it's a hypothetical (admittedly) question. But let us assume a medium sized star ... (bang, clunk!) What do you think?

Gid in scientific mode

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Well, the Sun has a mass that is roughly 300 hundred thousand times that of the Earth. So yeah, I think it's a safe bet that the Earth would be destroyed.

 

[Dannager]

'Scuse the dumb question but …

If a star collided with the earth what would happen? Would the earth survive the impact or would planet earth completely disintegrate? I'm not a rocket scientist and it's a hypothetical (admittedly) question. But let us assume a medium sized star ... (bang, clunk!) What do you think?

Gid in scientific mode

I have a feeling that the earth would probably be incinerated even before the star hit it. It's safe to say that that planet would be completely, totally gone - left as nothing more than an interstellar scorch mark.

Picture an ant. Now picture an elephant, on fire, trampling said ant. That's kind of what it'd be like.

 

[I_Love_Cheese]

'Scuse the dumb question but …

If a star collided with the earth what would happen? Would the earth survive the impact or would planet earth completely disintegrate? I'm not a rocket scientist and it's a hypothetical (admittedly) question. But let us assume a medium sized star ... (bang, clunk!) What do you think?

Gid in scientific mode

Something like a gnat hitting a windscreen at 100 kph. Not much from the windscreens point of view, but I wouldn't want to be the gnat/earth.

 

[Dannager]

This makes me worry a little about creationists on the whole. The fact that a collision with the sun would annihilate just about anything should be apparent to 8th graders. Is their education in science really this phenomenally lacking?

 

[Grengor]

'Scuse the dumb question but …

There is no such thing as a stupid ques...

If a star collided with the earth what would happen? Would the earth survive the impact or would planet earth completely disintegrate?

...nvm
(j/k)
As far as I know the Earth would probably incinerate long before the Sun reached it's (no longer occupied) position. Also as Pete mentioned, the whole scale of 300,000,000 might be a problem for us as well. Just a tiny one.

 

[Dannager]

Also as Pete mentioned, the whole scale of 300,000,000 might be a problem for us as well. Just a tiny one.

Well, it's only 300,000 in terms of mass. Of course, that's because the sun is mostly comprised of low-mass elements (hydrogen and helium). Volume-wise, we're 1 / 1,300,000th the size of the sun, though. Nothing but a dust-speck to it.

 

[Morcova]

I have a feeling that the earth would probably be incinerated even before the star hit it. It's safe to say that that planet would be completely, totally gone - left as nothing more than an interstellar scorch mark.

Dannager is a great guy because he saved me the time of posting that answer myself!

Picture an ant. Now picture an elephant, on fire, trampling said ant. That's kind of what it'd be like.

LOL

Does it make me a particuallary bad person that I read that and my first thought was of a Bar-B-Que?

 

[Glass*Soul]

Wow. Does all this mean this couldn't ever really happen?

"The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of the water--the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter." Rev. 8:10,11

 

[Pete Harcoff]

This makes me worry a little about creationists on the whole. The fact that a collision with the sun would annihilate just about anything should be apparent to 8th graders. Is their education in science really this phenomenally lacking?

Nah, it's not creationists. Some people can't readily conceptualize the sheer vastness (or smallness) of things beyond everyday experience. It's more a human limitation than anything.

 

[I_Love_Cheese]

Wow. Does all this mean this couldn't ever really happen?

"The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of the water--the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter." Rev. 8:10,11

Well, if you are not to literal, a star could well describe a meteorite, and if it contained any significant quantity of HCN it could well cause the effects described. Cyanide is said to taste like bitter almond, though I am not sure how to account for the angel part.

I don't think this was what the OP meant by a star crashing into the earth, though if it was, that is a good description of how it might be recorded.

 

[AV1611VET]

'Scuse the dumb question but …

If a star collided with the earth what would happen? Would the earth survive the impact or would planet earth completely disintegrate? I'm not a rocket scientist and it's a hypothetical (admittedly) question. But let us assume a medium sized star ... (bang, clunk!) What do you think?

Gid in scientific mode

• [bible]Revelation 8:10[/bible]

Here's a lesson in Hermeneutics 101:

• Some Scripture was written using what's called the language of the observer.

Which means that if you interpret it literally, it usually won't make sense.

 

[Dr.GH]

The sun and the moon were believed to be planets that orbited the earth. The truth was not known until the 19th century CE. Even Newton had it wrong. The Geeks were close, but they still belived in theSumerian concept of pefect circles and a base 60 math. Base sixty is still used today in time, and geodesics. Go figure???

 

[Gideon]

[FONT=&quot]My apologies. Make that a meteor of very large size - something much smaller than the earth but larger than meteors that have hit in the past.

What kind of scenario would we have?

Gideon[/FONT]

 

[lemmings]

[FONT=&quot]My apologies. Make that a meteor of very large size - something much smaller than the earth but larger than meteors that have hit in the past.

What kind of scenario would we have?

Gideon[/FONT]

Mars + Earth = Earth, Moon

Earth + Sun = Sun

 

[Hydra009]

My apologies. Make that a meteor of very large size - something much smaller than the earth but larger than meteors that have hit in the past.

What kind of scenario would we have?

The annihilation of a large portion of all species on the face of the planet, but except for having a nasty scar, Earth wouldn't be destroyed.

For comparison, the Chicxulub Crater was from a meteor about 10 km (6 miles) wide, hitting the Earth with the destructive force of about 100,000 gigatons of TNT. And that impact did some very nasty things. So with something bigger than that, I can guarantee you that we wouldn't ever have to worry about what to do after the impact.

 

[MrGoodBytes]

Which means that if you interpret it literally, it usually won't make sense.

Now that's something I never, ever expected to hear from you.

 

[Aron-Ra]

• [bible]Revelation 8:10[/bible]

Here's a lesson in Hermeneutics 101:

• Some Scripture was written using what's called the language of the observer.

Which means that if you interpret it literally, it usually won't make sense.

And all scripture was written by mere mortal men, and primitives who had no idea what they were talking about, which is another reason the Bible doesn't make sense. About the only way to make any sense out of it is to ignore most of what it really says, and 'interpret' heavily between the lines.

 

[Aron-Ra]

If a standard-sized star were on a collision course with the Earth, our planet would be completely charred a good while before it ever arrived. Earth, the moon, Mars and Venus could all be destroyed by that same event, all of them would be enveloped in the on-coming star. Our sun would almost certainly be profoundly effected by it too.

If it were only a large planet, like Jupiter, temperatures would still soar, and the Earth would be yanked into peices even before impact. Our planet would disappear entirely into Jovian clouds erupting in a massive fireball that would might permanently mar the larger world's appearance.

If it were something relatively tiny, like one of the Martian moons, our global climate would be devestated. Anything larger than that, and all life of any kind everywhere would be incinerated in a single lava flow that would cover the whole world.

 

[AV1611VET]

And all scripture was written by mere mortal men, and primitives who had no idea what they were talking about, which is another reason the Bible doesn't make sense. About the only way to make any sense out of it is to ignore most of what it really says, and 'interpret' heavily between the lines.

Those "primitives", as you call them, were a lot smarter than you think. Even "cavemen" back then would give our best scholars a run for their money, IMO.