Sun (Kerbol)

[Edd]

I have a question. If you travel too close to the sun do you experience heat? I mean, do parts overheat like engines, and is there a minimum distance you can be from the star without exploding?

I would like to know this because I only just realised you can select the sun in 0.17, and I would like to venture there and see it in all its fiery glory.

[mnnm1234]

Nope there is a death wall before you get to close.

[maltesh]

Up through v 0.11, the sun was a harmless lightpoint.

Up through v 0.13 ish, the sun was a lightpoint with its current mass, which you could get arbitrarily close to. It had a reference radius of about 65,400 km.

Up through v 0.16-ish, the sun was a lightpoint surrounded by an invisible surface that you would impact at about 4500km over its reference radius.

In v0.17, the sun has a visible surface with a significantly larger radius than previous versions (About 216,000 km, if I recall correctly). I've flown spacecraft as close as 13km to that surface. I've been told, but have not personally confirmed, that about 150 m above that surface, parts of your ship will overheat and explode.

[Richy teh space man]

This sounds interesting, I may have to find out for science..

Edit: Around 500k up you can see the surface, below 10k the sun turns blue Oo

No heat from it atm

Edited October 11, 2012 by Richy teh space man

[Vanamonde]

It looks pretty cool up close, though I didn't see any blue in .17 before my ship went boom at about 120,000m.

[Bluejayek]

I don't know what people are talking about with the explosions at 120km. Doing a sundive for extra velocity I went within 5km of the surface with no ill effects.

You probably notice the overheating signal in the picture. That was not due to proximity to the sun, but more because the nuclear engine had been running for the past hour or so.