BY LETTER
SunMiner
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| A SunMiner starscoop extracting matter from a star using a ramscoop. | |
Sunminers are a highly derived, cyborgised clade that during the ComEmp and early post-ComEmp periods specialized in starscooping and star-lifting, acquiring great wealth. They are now largely "old money", although they will still take on projects, especially if those are challenging or aesthetic.
Starscoops
A SunMiner starscoop uses ramscoop technology to extract material from the outer atmosphere of a star; a rotating field lifts hot material into the extraction.collection facility, where the metals and other elements are separated out centrifugally. Most of the hydrogen and helium is discarded, taking excess heat away from the vessel with it (although some of the hydrogen and helium may also be exported).Cooled Orbital Rings
Larger scale extraction projects are carried out with cooled orbital rings; highly eccentric rings carry material and heat away from the star, allowing the rapid extraction of large quantities of matter.Starlifting and Grazers
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The star-lifting array around Polaris squeezes this brillant star using intense magnetic fields, causing mass to be ejected from the polar regions | |
Even larger projects use Starlifting technology, and since the Gati Hertzprung Russell ascension, transapient level SunMiners have increasingly used godtech such as Grazer wormholes.
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| This grazer wormhole is extracting hot matter from the surface of a star | |
Related Articles
- Gati Hertzsprung-Russell Engineers
- Star Lifting
- Starbooster
- Stellar Engineering - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Modifying or customizing a star in any manner. Could be for the purposes of stellar husbandry, or for more exotic purposes. - Stellar Husbandry - Text by Dave Criswell, in Anders Sandberg's Transhuman Terminology
A type of stellar engineering which involves controlling the evolution and properties of stars, especially to stabilize them, prolong their lifetimes, manipulate the stellar wind, lift off useful material or create new stars. Typical methods include star lifting or mixing the stellar core with envelope material to make hydrogen burning last longer.
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
additional material by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 31 December 2007.
additional material by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 31 December 2007.
