Awhile back there were some claims that the Galileo spacecraft would turn Jupiter into a giant bomb. We all know this wasn't true and couldn't happen, and it was discussed on this site. It got me thinking however, what would happen if Jupiter suddenly exploded like a bomb. How would it affect the Earth and solar system in general. Would our orbit change at all?

Well in the short term it depends if we are shielded by the Sun or not. It would be a very big bang.

In the long term we would lose our "vacume cleaner" Jupiter does a very good job of sweeping up asteroids that might be coming our way.

As for the orbit I dont know.

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If Jupiter exploded, it would keep all the physicists busy for years rewriting the textbooks that say it can't happen. Even the BA would have some splaining to do. Just imagine what Nancy would say. The woo-woo's would be busy for years claiming that it was PX or that somehow it was a top secret NASA project gone wrong. That would be a very interesting time indeed.

If Jupiter suddenly wasn't there anymore, there would be no detectable ill effects. In the long term, we might be at an increased risk of getting hit by a comet without Jupiter to act as a great big gravitational target to get hit instead.

If you could somehow start sustained fusion reactions in Jupiter, turning it into a mini star like in 2010, the only effect on earth would be a really, really bright star in the sky. There's no known way this could happen, however. Jupiter is far too small to sustain fusion.

If jupiter actually exploded (as in, boom and nothing left), what happens to us depends on the method of the explosion. Planets don't explode - the gravitational binding energy of something the size of Jupiter is well beyond the capability of any mundane chemical or nuclear process to overwhelm. To make Jupiter actually explode would take something really exotic, like throwing a moon made of antimatter at it, or somehow converting the core of Jupiter into neutronium. In that case the results for everyone in the solar system could be bad, as the process would probably liberate a vast amount of radiation - effectively a mini supernova. Everything on the side of the planet not facing Jupiter would probably survive for a while.

Hmmm... I don't perhaps detect a nascent conspiracy, here, now do I?

Is someone perhaps thinking about adding mass to Jupiter again?

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etLux
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no... no... no... no... no.... no conspiracy here.

although, after hearing about all the nasty things that could happen should Jupiter explode, I think I'll take my Illudium Pew-237 exploding spaaaaace modulator and point it at venus instead. It obstructs my view of mercury.

however, on a more serious (and slightly off topic) note, I was always puzzled about the end of the movie Star Wars. If the empire wanted to destroy the Yavin moon base with the Rebels on it, why didn't they just point the death Star at yavin itself. It would have shaved about a half an hour off the movie (and rid us of the innumerable sequals ;-)

john

Perhaps they couldn't blow up the gas giant. maybe the laser would lose too much power drilling through the gas until it finally got down to what ever solid core there might be.

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Yeah, I think that's the generally accepted explanation.

My wisecrack above aside, what really would happen if a significant amount of mass were to be suddenly added to Jupiter?

Not something trivial, now -- but an addition of perhaps 10-25% of its current mass? Perhaps a rogue planetoid, say... er, in view of Jupiter's size, make that -- rogue planet, and a goodly sized one, at that.

Would it collapse and ignite into a small star, ala various science fiction story scenarios?

Or would it simply... get bigger?

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etLux
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It might actually get smaller (diameter) even though it gained mass. Jupiter is near the maximum for a non-stellar object..

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T. Anderson

Depends how you did it;

Saturn has less than one third od the mass of Jupiter, so you could add that;
if added slowly, through a small wormhole for instance, (hey! this is a thought experiment!)

Jupiter would hardly change- just get a little more massive and dense; the diameter wouldn't even increase by much.

You would need to add 12 more Jupiter masses before you created a brown dwarf, the smallest and weakest type of star.

But if you slammed Jupiter and Saturn together- the kinetic impact would be so great that you might briefly get some deuterium fusion going;
to get two big planets to collide would take so much energy you would not make a profit.

And lots of deuterium would be lost in a big flash;- that is a waste of a valuable resource in my opinion...

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Remember though that Jupiter's a gas giant. If one day something decides to explode Jupiter (sending bits of Jupiter flying around), it would be a different story to if it were a rocky planet exploding. Farther down into the atmosphere the pressure is so much greater that the gases become liquidized. This might mean liquid would be slopping all over the place. But what about hurricanes, including the *drumroll please* famous Great Red Spot =D> Wouldn't the winds just float away or something?

As for rocky planets...well lets just say that it would mean a lot of rocks flying around-and more than a couple Deep Impact episodes .

Well, hey, NZborngal, allow me to be the first to say "Welcome" to the BABB.

Welcome NZborngal, and no one believed me when I said that Kiwi's were coming to take over the board.

Mwhahahahahahahaha. 8-[

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There would be a HELL of a lot liberated energy by the phase change of the atmosphere to a denser form.

Even the Sims think Galieleo [sp?] was going to turn Jupiter into an explosive whatever! :wink: ops: [-X

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What would happen if Venus crashed into Earth?

We'd all die!!!

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T. Anderson

About the Jupiter explosion thing:

Let's say that, somehow, Jupiter's entire mass was converted to energy.

According ot Einstein, E=mc^2, where c is the speed of light (about 300,000 kilometers per second, folks).

O'course, you guys know that stuff better than I do. But anyway, just look up Jupiter's mass, convert it to a convenient form if necessary, and insert it into the equation.

This is just a guess, but I'll bet the energy released would be about the same as what you'd get from a small supernova.

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It seems like the units in Einstein's equation don't come out right for me. If you use SI units, the units come out to be

kg*m^2/s^2... I'm utterly confused. Someone please help! ops:

Ok, I understand now. A joule is defined as the energy required to accelerate a newton over 1 meter. Since a newton is defined as the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg across 1 meter every second per second, or kg*m/s^2, it can be rewritten as N*m. And that's the definition of a joule. Whew...

I got 1.908*10^42 J. More calculation tells me that it would take 15.6 million years worth of solar luminosities to equal the energy released if Jupiter turned into energy! If all of the energy was released at once, that's even more power than a supernova explosion, I believe.

edited for calculation error.

I love The Exploded Planet Hypothesis. It seems you better worry about the affects of smaller planets, as opposed, to the bigger planets.

Are you sure?

It seems to me if Jupiter is nearly there, then we wouldnt be discovering extrasolar planets that are much larger than Jupiter. But we are.

The planets we are finding are more massive than Jupiter, but not much larger in diameter. From Jupiter to the the lowest mass red dwarfs (1-100 MJ), the diameter remains almost constant.

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T. Anderson

Thanks for the clarification.

But a question. In 2010: Odyssey two, Clarke suggested that raising the density of Jupiter could allow it to sustain fusion and become a mini-star. Wouldnt this mean that the more massive Jupiter-like extrasolar planets would have that needed density in order to sustain fusion?

If they are more massive than Jupiter, their density is higher (since the diameter, as you said, is comparable so the volume is almost the same). If these extrasolar planets are NOT minisuns, then it would mean that Jupiter is NOT close to the maximum before becoming a star.

Or am I missing something?

Up to about 13 Jovian masses is considered to be a planet (gas giant). Between 13 and 80 MJ deuterium fusion is possible (at least for a little while). These objects are called brown dwarfs. Above 80 MJ, hydrogen fusion can occur and these objects are main sequence stars.

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

What is the smallest possible diameter for a main sequence star?

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