I've always had a nagging question in the back of my mind about Jupiter...

I know it's a gas planet.. but it has a rocky core. I guess i'm a little confused by the gas nature of a planet. when i hear gas i think something like air, or helium, clouds and steam.

It seems obvious that jupiter is a bid thicker than steam and air, but is the gas on jupiter comperable to those kinds of gasses?

If i was to skydive on jupiter (ignoring stuff like.. you know, DEATH) would i freefall through layers and layers of gassy clouds till i impacted on the solid core? or would i splash down into something like a recognisable ocean? compressed gass maybe.

its hard for me to imagine something like the storms on that planet with nothing for them to be on top of.

thanks for the info, basic stuff like this is hard to do a search for so sorry if its been answered before :-)

You'd burn up; you'd become atomized and part of Jupiter's atmosphere.

The Galileo probe that was dropped into Jupiter's atmosphere had a titanium hull. As I understand it, titanium melts at 3,100 degrees Fahrenheit. It most likely was vaporized. So, if this happened to titanium, human flesh wouldn't stand a chance.

Besides-even if you could survive that heat, there is nothing to splash down into. Jupiter is essentially a giant ball of liquid hydrogen, with a rocky core. Imagine a world-wide ocean, with no island. Also, there's a chance that there is no surface-the atmosphere just gets hotter and denser, gradually changing into liquid hydrogen. The air pressure at the transition point would be thousands of atmospheres.

Humans won't be able to explore this area directly for centuries, or perhaps for a millenium or two.

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Let's continue to assume that the sky diver is remarkably resilient to things like temperatures in the thousands of degrees and pressures that can create liquid metallic hydrogen and such....

Is there a point where the person (or object if it makes you feel a bit better) would simply stop falling, because of the sheer density of the atmosphere? Or would he/it continue down, penetrate into the liquid range, and then begin to sink towards the rocky core?

...John...

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Ignoring heat of re-entry (so you jumped from a plane, not orbit):

You'd hit a terminal velocity higher than earths, even if you jumped where the pressure is ~1 atm, due to the higher force of gravity.

As you fall, the air gets thicker, but fails to transition into a liquid or solid state due to the rising temperature.

Because of the thicker air, you'll begin to slow, but continue to fall, never reaching a stop until you reach a density of air akin to that of your body (just shy of the density of water). It's still a gas, but quite densely packed (very high pressure, not healthy!). Here you'd overshoot a bit, but "float" back to the area where you are the same density as your surroundings. There won't be much of a splash, due to the gradual transition.

You'd be nowhere near the core, and quite dead if we weren't ignoring temp and pressure effects on you personally.

Not to mention that the radiation would kill you quickly, even if the heat and pressure didn't.

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The closest thing I can think of on Earth:

Tie yourself to a ton of bricks and jump into the waters of the Mariannas Trench.

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if i didn't know anybetter i'd say you don't like me very much

i guess to be more specific, if the person was basicly immune to entry (heat/pressure), they'd eventually just slow down and float where the air density is about the same as themselves. the transition from gas to liquid is very very gradual?

thats kinda a bummer visually, i'd always imagined huge cloud vistas with lots of clear sky in between the layers.

still pretty cool though, i hope at some time we can get something "onto" jupiter with out destroying it.

Mass and density. Thats what its all about. Jupiter is such a big planet. It has a great deal of mass.The gravitational pull of all that matter is pulling the gas in with such a force as to we can not duplicate here on Earth. Hydrogen gas and metals under so much pressure that the heat is all most up to fusion levels. If Jupiter was four times bigger than it is ( mass not size ) It would be a star. As it is we can not go near it. its radiating far to much for our frail body's to cope with. Lets just visate her moons. They might be friendly.
As well documented above; If you could just pretend it would be OK. You would fall into the planet until you reached the density that could support your mass equally. You would float there forever. As a gas about the same thickness as water. Hmmm...

More like thirteen!

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Radiation is in Jupiter's Van Allen belts, not in Jupiter itself.

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Apparently hydrogen goes through phase transition at 2.8 million atmospheres, where its density jumps from 1.08 to 1.3. If the skydiver has density of water (1.0), yes he will stop somewhat short of that level.

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Man... okay well i just registered for this specific forum and i hope that this will catch some1's attention. if not, well atleast its out there for some fun i guess.

Okay, as a project at school, we must come up with travel plans to different planets. as luck would have it, its jupiter. my idea? Skydiving. Creepy right? lol.

a couple of assumptions had to be made in order for me to get to as far as i have, but that should be okay for this kind of project as long as im consistent.

D=(Cd p V^2 A)/2 this, in the event that some of you dont know, is the calculation for drag where Cd=the drag coefficient, p=gas density, v=velocity,and A=frontal area

Heres the story:
your avg. person weighs about 190 pnds (sry im american). My diving suit in this situation is 310 pnds which is equaling an overall weight of 500 pnds(this includes key tracking components, pressure equalizers, etc).
Jupiters gravitational acceleration(Jg) is 69ft/sec. there are roughly 35,000 miles of atmosphere to plow through. with those numbers your going down to any form of land mass at about 126,000mph which is the maximum possible speed without the force of drag.

my problem is figuring out the drag for my suit [8'x4'x2' (another assumption)]. heres another thing, im not aiming to hit the core, if anything i just want to slingshot myself around it. but i want to figure its terminal to see as to how fast i can get it in 300mph winds. its supposed to be the ultimate thrill ride.

a couple of things that may answer some unforseen questions:
A:you are being ejected from space...slowly. it gives the viewer a better glimpse of what he/she is up against.
B:the pod that you were just deployed out of will orbit jupiter within its atmosphere absorbing energy to be harvested and brought back to earth
C:the planets rotation speed, that I calculated, is 27,910.9mph. but i calculated it, not you so you might get something else, im only in algebra2 XD
D: theres a 47% increase in weight.


i can get more info if asked but im not expectin anything, just thought you guys might like to see what i got.

due date: January 6, 2009

You would require a spacesuit, or you would die a quick death. Even so, once you reached terminal velocity, you would be under 2.5 g. Not deadly, but certainly uncomfortable. But the ride down would hardly be smooth, given the fierce winds, some of which rage around 200 miles an hour. It's not the velocity, though. Rather, it's the change in velocity as you descend from one stream heading in one direction, through the turbulent layer between them, to another stream heading in the opposite direction.

Besides, even with a spacesuit, at nearly -200 deg F by the time you reach 1 bar, it's a chilly ride.

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If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

Not for long. It gets warmer very quickly further down.

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hmm that does sound uncomfortable. maybe ur right, terminal may not matter but its the most consistent thing i got and consistency is a good start. thanks for the input. i can definitley use it on my project. comfort is a major tour issue

Just a quick comment about Jupiter, it does has all the ingredients to be a star but it needs to have at least 80 times more mass to ignite the nuclear fire within its interior

On the plus side you'd get to see some stuff that are very cool like metallic water >.> which noone has ever seen so yeah...

You mean metallic hydrogen. And yes, it has been seen. Although never directly by a human eye.

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