Jovian Supernova!!!???

I wonder who the idiots are that decided to pre-ordain the old king of our solar system as a new star? Only because the scorching from nuclear detonations is making the big-guy very unstable and if jupiter ever ignites as a proto-star, it WILL kill us and this is not a pleasant way to perceive our future. Anybody, (don't be shy, or lie) know why the big push to 'fire' it up?

It's not gunn ignite from our tiny little nuke's we're sending in there. That #er is gunna need a whole lot more than on small plutonium reactor getting crushed to ignite it ... derr ...

www.badastronomy.com...

This kind of link may ease your nerves.

Nice site Zzub, although it wasnt exactly comforting to hear there were a few errors the first time he posted it Still i agree with him that it doesnt have or can produce the energy needed to 'ignite' Jupiter.

so luzifer is not gonna be born yet (2010 the movie)

[Edited on 22-11-2003 by darkspace]

jupiter is NOT NEARLY of sufficient mass to be able to sustain a fusion reaction. it COULD NOT become a sun, WILL NOT become a sun. physically impossible

3) Stars work by fusing hydrogen. Jupiter might turn into a star, or it might simply blow up like a bomb.

OK, so we don't have fission, and we don't have fusion. So let's suppose, contrary to all evidence, that NASA is really lying to us, and has put fission bombs and fusion fuel aboard Galileo. When they go off, will Jupiter explode, or turn into a star?

Nope, and nope. Fusion is not a runaway process. Once you start it up, it generates a lot of heat, which tends to expand the material violently (this is what we technically call a bomb). This means the fuel gets scattered, and it won't fuse. Making really big hydrogen bombs run into this problem, making it hard to make really big bombs, which in my book is perhaps a good thing.

So the process tends to damp itself off. Jupiter won't explode. It won't turn into a star, either. Stars work by maintaining fusion in their cores. Now, I just said fusion isn't self-sustaining, so how do stars keep it going? They do it by containing the hydrogen in a small volume. This is accomplished by piling a lot of mass on top of the hydrogen: the mass of the star.

The star has enough gravity that all that mass squeezes and heats the core enough for fusion to not only take place, but to continue at a relatively stable pace. But it turns out there is a lower limit to that mass; if you don't have enough, then you don't get the high temperatures and pressures necessary to ignite fusion. That mass is about 0.077 times the mass of the Sun, or 80 times Jupiter's mass. In other words, Jupiter is 1/80th the mass it needs to turn into a star. Some people call Jupiter a failed star, but in reality it ain't even close.

Conclusion: Jupiter won't explode, or turn into a star, because it lacks the containment to keep fusion going.

badastronomy.com ^