Nuking the sun, is it possible?

So I spent a few hours watching mythbusters this morning on my DVR and it gave me a good idea. Is it possible to Nuke the Sun with an atomic bomb? I think it is, and that it would look pretty cool. We could do it every fourth of July to create a man made fireworks show greater than any we have ever seen.

I mean, aren't we trying to get rid of half of our nukes anyways? Might as well put them to good use and launch them at the sun. I am giddy thinking about how sweet it would look. We have the technology, why wouldn't we do this?

13 Comments
 

Long ago there was a satirical Facebook group called Nuke the Moon. I was an early invite whom had a good laugh at the zips who thought it was a real cause and figured Nuking the Moon would solve so many issues such as tidal waves, eclipses, and so forth. The immense ignorance astounded me. It's sad that some of these people are allowed to vote.

 
Most Helpful

https://www.quora.com/Scientifically-is-it-possible-to-destroy-the-Sun-…

"Scientifically, yes. Huge nuke… no.

The sun is, itself, a giant, continuous nuclear explosion. Each second it converts 4 million tons of matter into energy by turning 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium. To put that in perspective.

4 million tons (in this case, metric tons) is 4,000,000,000 kilograms. Each kilogram of mass converted to energy results in the equivalent of a 21.5 megaton nuclear explosion.

So, every second, the sun is hitting itself with a 86,000,000,000 megaton bomb. That’s 86 Petatons.

Again, to put that in perspective, Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by mankind, was about 50 megatons. This is over a billion times that.

That’s the same as turning roughly 1/100,000th of the Earth’s mass into TNT, and detonating it.

Every second.

For the last 5 billion years.

And it will keep doing it for 5 billion more years.

Even smashing Jupiter into the sun would barely make a difference. The sun makes up more than 99.8% of the mass of the solar system, and Jupiter makes up just 0.1% of the mass. And Jupiter is over a thousand times more massive than the Earth.

The only thing that could actually affect the sun is another star.

Colliding the sun with another star would definitely have massive effects on the sun. Possibly causing it to supernova if the mass of the colliding star was high enough.

Of course, by the time that happened, you wouldn’t care because the solar system would have been wrecked by the gravitic tides of the approaching star, and Earth would have either been flung off into space, or crashed into either the sun or the new star.

And, of course, introducing a black hole of about one solar mass to the sun would nicely consume it as well. Again, to get it there, you’d have already destroyed the solar system.

For all intents, the sun is eternal, and we are not even fleas beside it. Mankind would need to advance to a level of technology indistinguishable from godhood before we could even think about affecting stars at any real scale.

Space, to put it bluntly, is big. And we are very, very small in comparison."

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

this post reminds me of the wise neil weed tyson - "humans are just grains of sand in a nothing universe oceans of infinity and nothing forever and ever and there is nothing out there and you are nothing everything is nothing you are just a piece of garbage floating in a vast ocean of spinning and burning stars in every direction and by the time you would come to some other civilization it would be a billion upon billion to the billionth power of years and by then our sun will have gone out. it doesn't matter because nothing matters so just close your eyes and disappear." fuck you neil weed tyson.

 

Tenetur corrupti qui minus maiores. Quidem est eum voluptatum vitae. Et assumenda facilis molestiae consectetur.

thots & prayers

Career Advancement Opportunities

July 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.3%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

July 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 02 98.9%
  • Evercore 01 98.3%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.7%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

July 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.9%
  • Morgan Stanley 06 98.3%
  • Goldman Sachs 01 97.7%
  • JPMorgan No 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

July 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (15) $434
  • Associates (46) $258
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (79) $150
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (73) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
5
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
6
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
7
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
8
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
9
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
10
Mimbs's picture
Mimbs
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”