Naked Science Forum
General Science => Question of the Week => Topic started by: evan_au on 09/12/2023 20:42:36
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...from one of our younger listeners...
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Jupiter's core is thought to have a temperature of about 20,000C, hotter than the surface of the Sun - so pretty much an Armageddon scenario already.
- This is believed to be a high temperature left over from the gravity of its formation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter#Physical_characteristics
But to make it a nuclear Armageddon, you would need to increase its mass by a factor of around 13.
This greatly increases the temperature & pressure in its core, producing conditions which start nuclear fusion of Deuterium in its core.
- This would turn it in to a brown dwarf star - too dim to see with visible light, but glowing more strongly in the infra-red spectrum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf
If and when humans ever visit the vicinity of Jupiter:
- It is too long a journey to make with chemical rockets, so it would likely require nuclear rockets
- it is a bit too far from the Sun to generate sufficient energy by solar power, so it is likely that they would use nuclear power.
- Hopefully, by then it would be nuclear fusion, rather than nuclear fission...
- It is possible that humans would take their petty squabbles with them (so far from their origin), and that could result in a nuclear Armageddon amongst the moons of Jupiter...
- The gravity of Jupiter is too high (2.5 times Earth gravity) that unmodified humans are unlikely to live there for very long, but robotic mining of the atmosphere is possible (eg extracting Helium-3 or Deuterium to fuel the nuclear rockets).
- Recovered elements would need to be exported using nuclear rockets. A squabble over mining operations could easily go nuclear!
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...from one of our younger listeners...
Hmm...they surely must have read about the Conspiracy Theory involving NASA, Galileo & Jupiter.
The amount of Misinformation being fed to the Young is quite Alarming.
ps - thank GOD, or maybe Not, for Science Forums Exist!
: )