WIll it ever be possible for Man to come within touching distance of the Sun or Any Star?
926185
You must be kidding.  The Sun is millions of degrees Fahrenheit.  It could melt lead in seconds.  As far as other Stars, a good deal of them are far larger and hotter than our Sun, so it would be humanly impossible.
27573
No. There is no practical possibility. Humans can't travel at a speed equal to or greater than that of light.
589675
Yes many stars ar bigger than the Sun. The Sun is a middle aged small to mid sized star. Some of the really giant stars would even overlap the earth's orbit if they were placed where the Sun is. \n\nRefer the following links for some more info on stars.
822093
Sure. A planet orbiting far enough from such a star could be habitable, but not for long. When I say not long, I mean not as long as billions of years. Red giants do not last for billions of years, but they do last for millions of years, we think. So such a civilization probably could not have arisen there naturally, but could have been started by space travelers from another star settling there.
126240
A better quetsion is why you think it would it be.\n\nThe sun is a huge fusion reaction separated from Earth by millions of miles of vacuum. By what possible mechanism could the two bodies ever reach thermal equilibrium?
483445
This is not possible yet .. maybe in the future for spaces, but not right now.
66324
If the sun were part of a binary system, it would revolve around the barycenter of the binary system. We would be able to dected this movment by comparing the Sun's position to other nearby stars and to more distant stars. Since we don't dectect any such movement around the barycenter, that means that any such compainion star must be very very small, making the barycenter close to the sun's positon, or very far away, making the motion of the sun about the barycenter very slow. \n\nNeither of these conditions are true of any other binary star system we see, so no.
347660
in our solar system i would say unlikely, but in the universe it should be. but we don't know that yet.
940470
Possible, maybe. Likely, definitely not. The problem with flare stars (I assume you're talking about red dwarfs) is that any planet that orbits one has to orbit extremely close in order to receive enough heat to have liquid water on its surface (which is supposedly a precursor to life). At this range from the star, the planet will probably experience tidal lock, which would mean one side perpetually faces the star. The main problem is that at that close a range, any flare on the star could dramatically increase the brightness within minutes. Under unstable conditions like this, it is unlikely that advanced life would have the chance to evolve, because it is thought that advanced life needs to evolve under a relatively stable climate.
567996
Yes, it is possible. There is only one case where it is impossible: all three circles have the same radius & their centers all lie on a straight line.
1180211
If you made a scale model with the distance from the earth to the sun scaled to be one inch, the distance to the *nearest* star other than the sun would be over 4 miles! Most of the stars we see at night (without a telescope) would be from 4 miles to over 1000 miles on this scale.\n\nSo the basic problem with interstellar travel is that the distances are absolutely incredible. The farthest that a probe of ours has travelled is about 9 feel on this scale and it has taken 3 decades to do that.
255650
Yes.  Or at least it can by using deep level optical spectroscopy (DLOS).  See the reference below:
223615
if only you could bring planet to standstill then  it would surely hit sun.the movement of planet around sun create a centrifugal force resisting gravitational pull.
186428
As far as planets go, Mercury.  All the time.  No planet ever gets closer.  I'm not quite sure what these folks are trying to pull with "pluto" but the closest it ever gets to the sun is still over 26 times farther away than the earth's orbit.\n\nComets and asteroids can get really close to the sun, in fact there is a class of comets that we call "sungrazers" they actually fall into the sun and never return.
49542
Yes, but not for a few million years. It'll happen just about 8 minutes after the Sun goes Supernova. 8 minutes is the light year distance from earth. So, don't sweat things for now.
382741
The sun is the closest star to Earth.
712157
It will happen, but exactly when isn't known. Take a look at this website for current risks for those objects that do come relatively close to Earth ==>http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/