Ann - essentially you are wrong about what type of merger would return our sun to early main sequence.   Apparently you think a large mass is required to provide the needed hydrogen.   What you missed is that much of the needed hydrogen is already there, it just needs to be mixed better so it is available for nuclear fusion.   I highlighted in blue a couple of main points - also my latest comments are in blue:

May 3, 2012 -- 7:29AM, AnnOMaly wrote:

May 2, 2012 -- 7:21PM, Newtonian wrote:

Knowsnothing & you all - to help you with the scientific data, I will now reference Scientific American (Sciam) - first concerning the various types of stellar collision results, including the one I referenced of a brown dwarf with a late main sequence star.

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?i...

That is Scientific American, November 2002, article "When stars collide."   It does not go into the detail other research does, but this is sufficient for now.  On p. 49:

"An isolated star has no way of replenishing

its initial allotment of fuel; its life span is preordained.

The more massive the star is, the hotter it is and the faster it

burns itself out. Given a star’s color, which indicates its temperature,

computer models of energy production can predict its

life span with high precision. But a coalesced star does not follow

the same rules. Mixing of the layers of gas during the collision

can add fresh hydrogen fuel to the core, with a rejuvenating

effect rather like tossing twigs on a dying campfire."

Now, the article shows the results are variable depending on the angle of collision and the types of stars and the relative velocities of the stars.

There is a basic chart on page 48 - note that a collision of a main sequence star like our sun with a brown dwarf results in a main sequence star.   However, with the additional hydrogen fuel added to our sun's core, this would return our sun from late main sequence to early main sequence. 

I hope to add more documentation on this later.

Like on my Noahcian flood thread - you all can scoff or actually examine the evidence!   It is my hope some of you will actually do some scientific research!

*Waves*

Post #10:

Why the heck would Jehovah need to use any collision to rejuvenate the sun (which, according to the article, would further reduce its lifespan long-term and nuke the earth's atmosphere and water)? He could use his abundance of 'dynamic energy' instead. Why make a simple solution complicated, Newt?

Jehovah obeys the statutes of the heavens he has created - and they are complex. (Job 38:33

Please note the comments in red.

Also p. 49-51 of the article. Context, context.

The object that results ...

[from a collision between stars of "slightly different" or "identical masses," Newt, according to the previous paragraph - not between our sun and a brown dwarf which is a tiny fraction of the sun's mass!] 

... is fundamentally different from an isolated star such as our sun. An isolated star has no way of replenishing its initial allotment of fuel; its life span is preordained. The more massive the star is, the hotter it is and the faster it burns itself out. Given a star’s color, which indicates its temperature, computer models of energy production can predict its life span with high precision. But a coalesced star does not follow the same rules. Mixing of the layers of gas during the collision can add fresh hydrogen fuel to the core, with a rejuvenating effect rather like tossing twigs on a dying campfire. Moreover, the object, being more massive than its progenitors, will be hotter, bluer and brighter. Observers who look at the star and use its color and luminosity to deduce its age will be wrong.

For instance, the sun has a total life span of 10 billion years, whereas a star twice its mass is 10 times brighter and lasts only 800 million years. Therefore, if two sunlike stars merge halfway through their lives, they will form a single hot star that is five billion years old at the moment of its creation but looks as though it must be younger than 800 million years. The lifetime remaining to this massive fused star depends on how much hydrogen fuel was thrown to its center by the collision. Usually this lifetime will be much shorter than that of each of its parents.

Yes, Ann - in the merger of two main sequence stars the result will be a star  with a shorter life-span.   I was not talking about a merger with another main sequence star - you are!

And from p. 50:

IN THE AFTERMATH of the collision between
the sun and a white dwarf, the sun explodes
as a giant thermonuclear bomb, leaving a
gaseous nebula. A few percent of the sun’s
mass collects in a disk around the white
dwarf, which continues on its way. Earth
survives, but the oceans and atmosphere
boil away. No longer held by the gravity of a
central star, the planets all fly off into
interstellar space and wander lifelessly
around the galaxy.

I was not talking about the merger of the sun with a white dwarf - but then, you knew that, didn't you?

The 'rejuvenating effect' results from two stars of similar mass merging, the consequence of which is a hotter object with devastating effects for the earth. So much for using this article as a basis for optimism, Newt!

Ann - So much for your usual distorting and twisting of my statements.    A fine tuned merger of a brown dwarf, not another main sequence star, will result in returning our sun to early main sequence.

Thank you, though, for alerting me to your post so I could correct it!

Kemmer - see the Scientific American article - and I did not say such a merger would make our sun eternal.

The existence of stars is linked in the Bible to plural forms of God's dynamic energy (Hebrew pl. Ohnim) and God's power (Hebrew koach) - see Isaiah 40:26 & NW footnotes.  

I agree with you and Ann that God can sustain our sun easily.   Being into science, however, I prefer to research how Jehovah may do this - and certainly one merger would only extend our sun's life span for 10 billion years longer, not eternally.

So, can you post a link that details the various results of mergers/collisions of main sequence stars and brown dwarfs?   Obviously it is not only the mass that is crucial, but also the relative speed and trajectory.

BTW - it is not just Jehovah's Witnesses who are interested in how mankind could survive various doomsday predictions of astronomers - would you like me to post links on this?

And I repeat - the merger of a brown dwarf with our sun is not discussed in our literature - I was posting my own independent scientific research - I trust you realize we are free to engage in scientific research on our own - I hope you don't think we have sacrificed our free will!

Ann - So much for your usual distorting and twisting of my statements.

You already accused me of that earlier in this thread and my response was in post #51.