A Sun scoop or sunscoop is a refueling technique for starships seen in science fiction. While it is theoretically plausible, most science fiction is concerned with stars as places to be explored, rather than as refueling stops.

Method

It involves a literal scooping, in which a ship draws plasma

Plasma (physics)

In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...

 directly from the outer surface of a star to use as fuel. Doing so would be extremely dangerous and only used in emergency situations.

In fiction

• Ray Bradbury
  Ray Bradbury
  Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
  
  's 1953 short story "The Golden Apples of the Sun".
• In the final novel of Peter F. Hamilton
  Peter F. Hamilton
  Peter F. Hamilton is a British author. He is best known for writing space opera. As of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide.- Biography :...
  
  's Night's Dawn trilogy, an alien race, inhabiting massive "cities" orbiting a red giant
  Red giant
  A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower...
  
  , uses ships equipped with electromagnetic ramscoops as an alternative to planetary mining.
• "42
  42 (Doctor Who)
  "42" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 19 May 2007, and is the seventh episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series....
  
  ", a 2007 episode of Doctor Who
  Doctor Who
  Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
  
  
• "Light", an episode of Stargate Universe
  Stargate Universe
  Stargate Universe is a Canadian-American military science fiction television series and part of MGM's Stargate franchise. It follows the adventures of a present-day, multinational exploration team traveling on the Ancient spaceship Destiny many billions of light years distant from the Milky Way...