What element, if any, would justify mining stars (financially)?
Alright so in my sci-fi a prominent corporation dominated by the Borlak species (Mantis-like Hexapods). The Borlak make their money by mining "dead systems", solar systems without any habitable planets or any planets worth terraforming or colonizing. Which they, after taking the best materials for themselves, charter out to other corporations or prospectors.
However the Borlak now want to tap into the stars of these dead systems. I know stars are made of mainly hydrogen and helium, but I was wondering is their any resource/element able to justify the hassle of mining stars?
Note: I know they could just build a dyson sphere, but I want them to physically mine the star for something.
Tech level is: fusion is common. Antimatter is a thing, but very rare and heavily sanctioned. Construction of Dyson spheres is possible but still a monumental project.
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1 answer
No, there's no such element that would justify this sort of attempt.
We have data on the composition of the Sun's photosphere, one of its outermost layers. By mass, the solar photosphere is 98.3% hydrogen and helium. Oxygen and carbon compose another 1%, followed by even smaller quantities of iron, neon, nitrogen, silicon, magnesium, and sulfur - all elements found in Sun-like stars in these amounts. None of them are particularly precious or hard to find on Earth; they're certainly not worth the hassle of trying to scoop away part of a star's atmosphere.
Chemically peculiar stars
I can imagine that a chemically peculiar star might attract some attention. In these stars, diffusion, magnetic fields and other processes dredge up heavier elements from deeper in the star and bring them to the surface. Different subclasses of peculiar stars are characterized by the presence of different elements in their photospheres:
- Ap-Bp stars: Strontium, chromium, europium, and silicon
- Mercury-manganese stars: Mercury and manganese, with traces of platinum and other heavy elements
- Am-Fm stars: Heavy metals
Though still composed of hydrogen and helium in similar fractions to the Sun, these heavy elements are substantially overabundant compared to the solar photosphere, and provide potentially interesting targets for exploration.
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