Can we extend the sun’s life?

A very futuristic way exists, and it brings with it a number of numerous other benefits. It’s a machine called Star Engine. A megastructure whose primary purpose is to move the entire solar system where you want, and as a side effect of its operation, to increase the longevity of its star.

To move the entire solar system, all you need to do is move the sun, since everything else is gravitationally tied to it. There are two different types of machinery to do this.

The simplest is the “Shkadov thruster”, a huge mirror parabola-shaped that reflects up to half of the photons emitted by a star, together with their momentum, thus receiving a slow push in the opposite direction.

To make it work, the mirror must be positioned above one of the poles of the sun, otherwise you risk incinerating part of the solar system.

For this reason we could only move the solar system in a direction perpendicular to the plane where the planets rotate.

(Image not to scale)

The mirror would be pushed towards the star if the attraction were not balanced by the pressure of the solar radiation emitted by the star itself.