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Stellar engineering is a type ofengineering (currently a form ofexploratory engineering) concerned with creating or modifyingstars through artificial means.
While humanity does not yet possess the technological ability to perform stellar engineering of any kind, stellar manipulation (or husbandry), requiring substantially less technological advancement than would be needed to create a new star, could eventually be performed in order to stabilize or prolong the lifetime of a star, mine it for useful material (known asstar lifting) or use it as a direct energy source. Since a civilization advanced enough to be capable of manufacturing a new star would likely have vast material and energy resources at its disposal, it almost certainly wouldn'tneed to do so.
Manyscience fiction authors have explored the possible applications of stellar engineering, among themIain M Banks,Larry Niven andArthur C. Clarke.
In the novel series Star Carrier byIan Douglas the Sh’daar species merge many stars to make blue giants, which then explode to become black holes. These perfectly synchronized black holes form aTipler cylinder called the Texagu Resh gravitational anomaly.
In the novel seriesThe Book of The New Sun byGene Wolfe, the brightness of Urth's sun seems to have been reduced by artificial means.
In the season 3 (1989) episode "Take Me to Your Leader" of the1987Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon,Krang,Shredder,Bebop and Rocksteady use aSolar Siphon to aim towards theSun, and store the solar energy into compact batteries, freezing theEarth making it too cold for people to resist them. Once the Turtles have defeated them,Donatello reverses the flow.[1]
In episode 12 ofStargate Universe, Destiny was dropped prematurely out of FTL by an uncharted star that the crew determines to be artificially created and younger than 200 million years old with anEarth-sized planet containing a biosphere exactly like Earth's being the only planet in the system.
InFirefly (TV series), set 500 years in the future, severalgas giants are "Helioformed" to create viable suns for the surrounding planets and moons.
In theSpace Empires series the last available technology for research is called Stellar Manipulation. In addition to the ability to create and destroy stars, this branch also gives a race the ability to create and destroyblack holes,wormholes,nebulae,planets,ringworlds andsphereworlds. Just as described above, this technology is so advanced that once the player has the ability to use them, they usually don't need them anymore. This is even more the case with the last two; once one of these megastructures is complete, the race controlling the ringworld or sphereworld has almost unlimited resources, usually leading to defeat of the others.[2]
InThe Saga of the Seven Suns, by Kevin J. Anderson, humans are able to convert gas giant planets into stars through the use of a "Klikiss Torch". This device creates a wormhole between two points in space, allowing a neutron star to be dropped into the planet and ignite stellar nuclear fusion.
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