I heard that nasa would be crashing galeleo into jupitor this month, web sites are saying about the dangers of jupitor ex or imploding is this actually possible. Galeleo is nuclear so i think that that woould cause a massive blast...

How big is the satelite to be able to cause enough force to destroy a planet like jupitor

Yes you are right, NASA plans to crash Galileo into Jupiter on Sept 21, as for the dangers of crashing Galileo into Jupiter? Zero. Yes Galileo is powered by two Nuclear Reactors, quite small mind you just enough to generate the electricity needed to power the instruments, computers and radio communications on the probe (about 500 watts, I think that a hair dryer needs more than that to operate! , check this link about that. The first thing to know is that Nuclear Reactors can't explode like nuclear bombs, because the amount of nuclear "fuel" is much smaller than the one needed to make a bomb. Second: even if the first fact was wrong nuclear bombs don't detonate on impact, Third: In 1994 comet Shoemaker-Levy crashed into Jupiter, according to this link: Yet Jupiter is still there.

So if you ask me I think there is nothing to worry about

[Edited to fix some dumb spelling errors]

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It would be cool though to have a second sun ala 2010. Probably mess up the weather though.

Sigma do you happen to know how much more mass it would take to reach critical mass and start a nuclear rxn for Jupiter? Just curious.

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Their main concern is the nuclear fission reactor onboard. You can read about the technology and safety concerns here:

http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/fissiontech.pdf

and here:

http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/fissiontechsafety.pdf

You'll need Acrobat reader installed obviously.

The size of the spacecraft in inconsequential with regards to Jupiter. The reason it's being scuttled on Jupiter is to prevent it from contaminating one of the Jovian moons. I highly doubt the small anount of fuel onboard is capable of "igniting" Jupiter. It's just another pseudoscience claim being put forth for someone's few minutes in the spotlight.

From what I've been able to dig out, the RTGs contain 15 kg of radioactive material between the pair of them.

I would consider that to be like a drop of fresh water in the ocean - it's not going to make it a bit less salty.

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this link says:

Since the Sun has about 1000 times more mass than Jupiter, one can then conclude that Jupiter needs to be 80 times more massive in order to become a star.

Monoliths anyone?

[Edited to fix an annonying writing mistake]

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From what I know it's not quite correct to call the isotope batteries "nuclear reactors" since they're nothing like the reactors we have down here.

Unlike reactors, there is no controlled chain reaction going on in those batteries, it's just the normal radioactive decay generating some heat that is converted to electricity. Much less power output than a reactor, but also much simpler.


Even if there were a way to make those batteries explode like nukes, it's very impossible that these small things can ignite fusion on Jupiter. The problem with fusion is that the energy output will blow apart the reaction masses, thus extinguishing the fusion again. Only when the pressure is high enough to keep all the parts together will fusion sustain. Those pressures can be found in the cores of stars but not in Jupiter's core, even less on its surface. If Jupiter could sustain fusion it would start fusion by itself without the help of puny space probes.

I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.

Cool info! thanks!

stands corrected as well........

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As I pointed out elsewhere, if Galileo is this big -> .

Jupiter is about 1.5 miles in diameter.

The odds of Galileo causing any problems are so slim as to be not worth considering.

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Galileo could cause a lot of damage to Jupiter! .... If it were about the size of Earth. :P
But it is an interesting thought, what if we dropped a nuke on Jupiter. Could there be a chain reaction of some sort. Yes! Acording to Samantha Carter on Stargate anyway. 8)
I'm reminded of the comets that hit Jupiter a few years ago. Made some nice dark spots in the Jupiter clouds for a while. No other noticeable reaction.

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Yeah for about - a week!!! After that you couldn't tell that anything had hit Jupiter at all!

So if something more powerful than we can ever throw at Jupiter can't turn it into a Sun - what's to think that our miniscule little probe's gonna do any different?

Oh, I forgot... It's nukyular...

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Oh...not according to someone named Steadman on GLP...

Galileo will ignite Jupiter and Cassini will ignite Saturn. Part of some evil government plot...maybe to have 24 hour sunlight.

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Heck if the US goverment can do that, why hasn't the US conquered the galaxy yet? I would if I were them!

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Were going to have a second sun in 2010? Wouldn't that mess up the climate on Earth and doom humanity?

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The nasa links provided show actual normal (albeit tiny) uranium fission nuclear reactors, different from the "batteries" that you are talking about. The second link says all of ours are at the moment the isotope type, but calls the normal fission reactors the "future." Sounds like the isotope batteries don't produce enough power.

It probably would change the weather at least, although I'm not sure since jupiter would be a much smaller sun (if it were possible) and its being much further away from us than the sun. I was refering to the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to 2001: A Space Odessy. In 2010 the aliens cause jupiter to collapse in on itself and ignite into a second sun. Since Sigma_Orionis was kind enough to find info on what it would take to get jupiter to "change" into a star I don't think there is anything to worry about. Even if it happened, I don't think it would doom humanity. Again it would be a smaller sun that would be approx. 5 times further from us than we are from the sun.

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Oh. I didn't know there was a sequal to that movie. Thanks for the info.

A second sun would be kinda cool though. Like Tatooine.

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RTGs are not a fission reactor, they make use of the heat from natural Plutonium decay to power thermocouples -- objects which convert heat into electricity. There is talk of using a small fission reactor for future missions to allow more power (Cassini has three RTGs and there will be times when that isn't enough to power everything at once, later in the mission). But these fission reactors are many years in the future and still very much in the tentative planning stages.

Here is a short discussion about common RTG misconceptions.

And here (in PDF) is a description of just how RTGs work.

Hope this answers your RTG questions.

As to Jupiter igniting, it wouldn't burn very long unless a significant amount of extra mass were added (ala 2010, 2061, 3001). Actually it would probably just blow itself apart in rather short order, since there wouldn't be anything to sustain the reaction (not enough mass again, but the books had some solution to that...). But that is besides the point, since we don't have a way to actually get it to ignite in the first place.

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Surely that was a typo...

He was explaining how big was Jupiter in relation to Galileo, what he said was that if Galileo was the size of a period -> . then Jupiter would look like a ball that had 1.5 miles diameter

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Well there goes my Bic theory.

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I wonder if it is the same Steadman who posted a picture of a liquid water lake on mars. The image had too much compression damage to really determine anything.

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What if PX fell into Jupiter? 8-[

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Yes. The same Steadman that named a "lake" on Mars after himself.

The same thing that would happen if any other imaginary object fell into Jupiter. Huge imaginary explosion.

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What if Nancy fell into Jupiter? Would the huge infusion of hot air be enough to ignite it?

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Whoa... Jupiter's big, but that's a lot of hot air...

. . . . . . . . . . . .

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I must not PX. PX is the mind-killer. I will face my PX. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the PX has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.