LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“[draft amnesty] A New Global Risk: Large Comet’s Impact on Sun Could Cause Fires on Earth” by avturchin


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There are several scientific papers that claim that the variability in luminosity of young stars can be explained by the collisions of these stars with comet-like bodies, and that during such collisions, energy release would be rapid and explosive in the upper layers of the solar atmosphere (similar to the explosion of the Chelyabinsk meteorite).

Furthermore, it is known that Kreutz comet progenitor with a diameter of 100-200 kilometers passed at a distance of 1.3 solar radii from the Sun around 2,300 years ago. Due to the very high escape velocity at the Sun, a body falling from infinity would have a velocity of 618 kilometers per second at its surface. This gives us energy estimates: when a body with a diameter of 100 km falls, the flare energy would be 100 times greater than the energy radiated by the Sun per second, and if a 1000-kilometer body falls [...]

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First published:

October 15th, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9gAksZ25wbvfS8FAT/draft-amnesty-a-new-global-risk-large-comet-s-impact-on-sun

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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