Jool solid?

[9911MU51C]

Ok, so I was using an infinite fuel tank and a small unmanned probe just testing the new planets (atmosphere, speed decrease, gravity, etc) so I dont end up wasting time building a duna lander for eve or vice versa, and I was curious about jool, seeing as its a gas giant, but when I hit 100 meters you literally just blow up on clouds. it even says "[part] has crashed into Clouds"

my question is will there be a solid core for jool? or like a special pod reinforced for landing in jool?

[doggie015]

Wait... an infinate fuel tank? Isn't that cheating?

[Ziff]

Ok, so I was using an infinite fuel tank and a small unmanned probe just testing the new planets (atmosphere, speed decrease, gravity, etc) so I dont end up wasting time building a duna lander for eve or vice versa, and I was curious about jool, seeing as its a gas giant, but when I hit 100 meters you literally just blow up on clouds. it even says "[part] has crashed into Clouds"

my question is will there be a solid core for jool? or like a special pod reinforced for landing in jool?

Uh, no. It's not solid, it's a gas giant. There really isnt a well defined solid core. The atmosphere just gets denser as you get closer to the core. So you can't really land on them.

[Sherlock21st]

Gas giants generally have atmospheres so dense that they not only contribute a significant portion of their gravity, but also crush spacecraft with the high pressure.

[cardgame]

It's a bit hard to illustrate the thickness of the atmo.

[vexx32]

IIRC, most (if not all) gas giants do in fact have a (very small) solid rocky core. Even if it isn't composed of rock, at such high pressures as you'd encounter in the core of a gas giant, most of the gases will at the very least be liquid, and some will likely be solid. it is physically impossible for there not to be some sort of solid core, simply due to the immense pressures involved.

[CobraA1]

In real life, there's no surface. In Kerbal Space Program, if the wiki's right, it actually does have a surface, but you're intended to get destroyed on it. But it's apparently buggy.

[vexx32]

Nope, I was slightly off. Most gas giants have a liquid core. However, if the gas giant is hot enough (which Jool is far too far from Kerbol to be), then the core may melt enough to end up being dispersed throughout the gas giant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_giant

[cardgame]

In real life, there's no surface. In Kerbal Space Program, if the wiki's right, it actually does have a surface, but you're intended to get destroyed on it. But it's apparently buggy.

I fell through the surface until my altimeter read 100m (read: -100m) and only then was destroyed.

My last spent stage exploded on impact, though.

[Felsmak]

Apparently, it does have a surface, but you're not really supposed to be there since real gas giants don't have any.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Felsmak

[naloxone]

ISA Mapsat reports no surface detected from an altitude as low as 80km. It doesnt appear to have any solid topography.

[ramy]

you will be crushed under the huge pressure of jool. I tried that.

[borzwazie]

I had parts bouncing off a "surface" at approximately 98 meters. Several parts survived "landing" to do this. Freefall is around 35m/s close to the surface.

[baked_by_oven]

It's a gas giant, the only reason why it has a "surface" in KSP is so that it worked with the planet code.

Like how Kerbol has a "surface" which is instant-death.

[Colderjake1524]

i got bill somehow -78m under the ground. he started glitching out and stretching all over the place

[erkha343]

Gas giants Have a thick atmosphere, compared to earth, but they're mostly liquid. First you have a gaseous atmosphere, then a VERY deep liquid layer, and in the middle a solid core.

[vexx32]

Sometimes, not always. Im the middle of a gas giant, the pressure also gives rise to some large amounts of heat, but not enough to start it going into a fireball (obviously)... because of this, a fair few gas giants do not have a totally solid core.

[erkha343]

Sometimes, not always. Im the middle of a gas giant, the pressure also gives rise to some large amounts of heat, but not enough to start it going into a fireball (obviously)... because of this, a fair few gas giants do not have a totally solid core.

Actually, the higher the pressure, the harder it gets to melt something.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Gas giants just don't have enough mass to create the pressure to start a fusion reaction where hydrogen becomes helium, like in a star. Still, the pressures are so great near the core, though, that the terms we have for "liquid" and "solid" probably don't really apply. Any person and their ship would be squished almost flat before they got anywhere near the core, and the wind shear would tear them to pieces before they got close enough to be squished.

This is what happened in the movie 2010, where the monoliths increased the mass of Jupiter so that it could "light" it's fusion reaction and become a star.

I think. I'm sure I've missed some info there and misunderstood something.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Dweller_Benthos

[RedDwarfIV]

The book makes it a lot more understandable.

Plus, giant cloud sheep. Clarke had some wierd ideas about Jovian life.

[spikeyhat09]

even if you dived into Jupiter with an indestructible pod, you would land in a hydrogen ocean before a rocky core.

[9911MU51C]

Wait... an infinate fuel tank? Isn't that cheating?

as I said, I was testing the planets to see what they where like before deciding where to go and what I'll need to get there

and thanks for all the replies, I wasnt really thinking about how high the pressure would be at the core. the main reason I ask is that I read that there was a landable surface, but I may have read it wrong