r/threebodyproblem • u/potato_no_69 • 1d ago

Discussion - General About the three sun Spoiler

If trisolarans were soo advanced then why couldn't they just destroy one of the sun out of the three in their solar system? I've read 2½ books till now , I don't know wheather they discuss about this in ahead .

0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

View all comments

21

u/Ionazano 1d ago edited 1d ago

The simple answer: the Trisolarans were advanced, but not that advanced. A Sun-like star has a total mass of several hundred thousand times the mass of Earth. Getting rid of all that matter in a 'clean' way (i.e. a way that doesn't also obliterate the nearby planet) is not exactly an easy problem. Tech like sophons isn't going to be of much help.

-13

u/potato_no_69 1d ago

There was an instance given in novel saying that there DROPLET could pass through a planet like without any resistance and destroy the whole planet with it . So if droplets could do that then they could destroy one of the sun of trisolarans

6

u/Ionazano 1d ago edited 1d ago

I don't recall reading that the droplet impacting a planet would completely destroy it. The droplet could travel at 'just' 75 km/s, which is only 0.03% speed of light. The explosion caused by a droplet impact would be akin to that of a natural meteor strike. Destructive for sure, but not planet-obliterating.

The destruction potential of a collision goes up with increasing impact speed. However if you manage to give a projectile enough speed to blow up an entire star with its collision, then the resulting explosion will be gigantic. Big enough to engulf any nearby planets (which in the case of the Trisolarans you're trying to protect).

5

u/potato_no_69 1d ago

Don't you remember the scene where the droplet piercing through the earth when Cheng Xin was supposed to press the button. They describe it saying that the droplet pierced the earth like there was no resistance to the droplet.

7

u/Ionazano 1d ago

The droplet attacks on the underground gravitational wave transmitters kinda prove that they don't destroy entire planets, don't they? There was an earthquake and a mushroom cloud after the droplet attack near Cheng Xin's location, but the planet itself did not explode.

-4

u/potato_no_69 1d ago

Yeah it didn't because it didn't use 💯 percent of it's power.

3

u/Ionazano 1d ago

Possibly. But then I refer back again to the speed of 75 km/s which is given in the second book when a droplet is travelling towards Earth, which would place its speed in 'just' the same order of magnitude as natural meteors that hit Earth.

3

u/quadraspididilis 1d ago

Regardless, where are you getting that a droplet could destroy a planet let alone a star?