What if you nuked Jupiter?

[vger]

Because a small second sun to thaw out the Jovian system would create some very very nice backup earths on Ganymede and Callisto?

Turning Jupiter into a star? That has all sorts of disaster written all over it.

...I wonder who has the movie rights?

I find it odd people are assuming that fenerzilla is making a serious proposal that we should actually nuke Jupiter, instead of just being curious whether Jupiter could sustain a fusion reaction if one were ignited.

It could probably be done in a lab with enough foresight to contain the reaction. But we probably wouldn't even have to go that far. Even with such a high amount of hydrogen, I'm thinking entropy would ensure the nuke didn't get very far in its purpose. Even if it created an explosion the size of Earth, Jupiter wouldn't even flinch.

Edited June 19, 2014 by vger

[Kryten]

Turning Jupiter into a star? That has all sorts of disaster written all over it.

...I wonder who has the movie rights?

MGM, given that exact plot point appeared in their 2001 sequel, 2010.

[vger]

MGM, given that exact plot point appeared in their 2001 sequel, 2010.

I was thinking of Jupiter becoming as star as an impending problem that needs being dealt with. Not the 'solution' to a pre-existing problem.

[Albert VDS]

Jupiter just doesn't have enough mass to "ignite".

[fenderzilla]

you guys are kinda mean. do i really sound that ignorant? (I kind of am, but...)

Edited June 20, 2014 by fenderzilla

[xcorps]

Don't sweat it bro. It's an effect of the innerwebz, kinda like whiskey made William Munny blow up the Rock Island and Pacific in '69 killing women and children. And that Marshall in '73.

[Nuke]

you need about 13 jupiter masses to sustain deuterium fusion and 65 jupiter masses to sustain lithium fusion. this would still just be a brown dwarf.

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

you would need about 78.6 jupiter masses to have an actual star.

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

Edited June 20, 2014 by Nuke

[YNM]

Just some thought... So, if we nuked Jupiter with (say), the world's largest thermonuclear bomb ever produced (Tsar Bomba) :

1. Will it be a star ? -> No. The definition of a star is actually something that produce energy by nuclear reactions inside it (so pulsar and white dwarfs aren't a star actually). And in order to create fusion, you must make a way so that nuclei of atoms can overcome the coulomb force (or coulomb repulsion) between their charge, and allowing the nuclear strong force to take over. Just imagine this : you must make 13 Jupiter mass of hydrogen into one just to bought them into degeneracy. You'd need more so they are both hot enough and compressed enough, that they can fuse into heavier nuclei. You made it a bit harder - we nuke it. I haven't counted it but my bets are it will either still be intact, or a portion of it is fusing at an instant (not continuous). But never, ever sustained fusion.

2. How much energy will it produce ? -> Not negligible, but still small. The Sun releases 3.846*10^(26) J each second, and this yields an absolute magnitude of +4.83 . If Jupiter was a main-sequence star (assume that it's possible), assuming L (in L☉) = M^(3) (in M☉) then Jupiter will release only (100/104756)^(3) of that number; the pogson equation gives a difference of +22.65 , so an absolute magnitude of +27.48 . The visual magnitude from Earth would be -1.08 on opposition (assuming a distance of 4 AU), still smaller than many celestial objects and still smaller than what it reflects back.

From the innermost galilean moon, Jupistar's (Jupiter-star) visual magnitude is -31.84 - still larger than the Sun from Mercury trough. Silly case...

Edited June 20, 2014 by YNM

[MC.STEEL]

So assuming Jupiter is a star,where would its "Goldilocks" zone be?

Will any one of the moons fit in that zone?

[Greenfire32]

So assuming Jupiter is a star,where would its "Goldilocks" zone be?

Will any one of the moons fit in that zone?

If Jupiter were a star, its moons would be waaaaaaayyyy to close to be in the Jupiter Goldilocks zone. Also, if Jupitar were to suddenly become a star, we'd all be dead and flung into deep space due to gravity magicks.

[Ralathon]

So assuming Jupiter is a star,where would its "Goldilocks" zone be?

Will any one of the moons fit in that zone?

Goldilocks zone depends on power output. So to calculate that we'd need to know Jupiter's power output as a star. Since Jupiter can't sustain fusion on its own the power output depends completely on the technological tricks we humans can use to fuse Jupiters mass.

So by the time we can convert Jupiter into a 'star' we can arbitrarily decide where we put its goldilocks zone.

[MC.STEEL]

*SNIP* if Jupitar were to suddenly become a star, we'd all be dead and flung into deep space due to gravity magicks.

The what?Even if a ball of mater is performing fusion its gravity remains the same because the amount of matter remains the same. (right???)

The only thing that will change is the thing will start spewing solar wind that is not that much of a factor.

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

The what?Even if a ball of mater is performing fusion its gravity remains the same because the amount of matter remains the same. (right???)

The only thing that will change is the thing will start spewing solar wind that is not that much of a factor.

Wrong, if its more dense, it has more gravity So,the two stars gravity would fling almost everything out of the system, and then they would collide or fall into a binary orbit(very unlikely). If we did survive all that, we'll be scorched, frozen, or flung out sooner or later. Edited June 20, 2014 by ThinkOutsideTheHangar

[Ralathon]

Wrong, if its more dense, it has more gravity So,the two stars gravity would fling almost everything out of the system, and then they would collide or fall into a binary orbit(very unlikely). If we did survive all that, we'll be scorched, frozen, or flung out sooner or later.

Erm no. Shell theorem, look it up.

Density has nothing to do with gravity in far away orbits. Everything can be approximated as a point mass.

F = G(M*m)/r² Do you see a density in there?

[cpast]

Density affects *surface* gravity (because gravitational acceleration depends on distance from the center of mass, which, for a given mass, depends on density), but outside of cases where you're *inside* the planet your gravitational acceleration depends only on total mass. If Jupiter were artificially collapsed into a black hole somehow without changing mass, it *still* wouldn't affect the force of gravity.

[Sirrobert]

you guys are kinda mean. do i really sound that ignorant? (I kind of am, but...)

Nah, it's an interesting question. I like it

The people here are just a little passionistic (is that a word?) about science sometimes

[fenderzilla]

okay everyone, don't listen to me complaining. it does seem the answers are anonymous though - the problem seems to be with density, not ignition. question pretty much answered!

[Godot]

And it is good that it never would work ...

a second sun in our solar system surely would cause havoc to earths ecosystem ...

the majority of animals and plants are adapted to a cycle of darkness and light ...

now imagine if >= 25% of a year (when Jupiter is opposed to the sun) whole earth would have no night, but just a bright half day followed by a not so bright half day.

(while there surely are examples of 24 hrs sun ... the midnight sun of northern countries ... the ecosphere there just empigrated over millions of years, enabling the ecosystem to find a balance with the conditions to be found there ... I am sure that it would be different for whole earths ecosystem, as the change would happen abruptly (within a year) giving the ecosystem no time to adapt

[xcorps]

okay everyone, don't listen to me complaining. it does seem the answers are anonymous though - the problem seems to be with density, not ignition. question pretty much answered!

Unanimous means all are in agreement.

Anonymous means unidentified.

[_Augustus_]

If Jupiter were a star, its moons would be waaaaaaayyyy to close to be in the Jupiter Goldilocks zone. Also, if Jupiter were to suddenly become a star, we'd all be dead and flung into deep space due to gravity magicks.

And it is good that it never would work ...

a second sun in our solar system surely would cause havoc to earths ecosystem ...

the majority of animals and plants are adapted to a cycle of darkness and light ...

now imagine if >= 25% of a year (when Jupiter is opposed to the sun) whole earth would have no night, but just a bright half day followed by a not so bright half day.

(while there surely are examples of 24 hrs sun ... the midnight sun of northern countries ... the ecosphere there just empigrated over millions of years, enabling the ecosystem to find a balance with the conditions to be found there ... I am sure that it would be different for whole earths ecosystem, as the change would happen abruptly (within a year) giving the ecosystem no time to adapt

Not true. Let's assume we turned Jupiter into a T-Dwarf brown dwarf. It would be invisible from Earth with the naked eye, and it's gravity/SOI would only be 13 times as much. Sure, it might mess with Ceres and some asteroids, but Earth, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the other gas giants, and all TNOS would be fine.

A brown dwarf's habitable zone is very close, and all the Galilean moons would end up being habitable if terraformed after this process. So, assuming we could do it, it would be a good idea.

Brown dwarfs also have even longer lives than red dwarfs (Red dwarfs live for 300 TRILLION years), and Jupiter would not be affected by the Sun turning into a red giant.

And about radiation? Brown dwarfs have less radiation than a nuke test site. So we'd be fine from that, too.

TL.DR: Helioforming Jupiter could save humanity..

Edited August 9, 2014 by _Augustus_

[ZetaX]

This sounding mostly correct, my objection is to the final conclusion: while Jupiter might not care much about that red giant formerly called sun, the terraformed moons probably will. Thus it is not that helpful to evade the dying sun.

[Kerbart]

TL.DR: Helioforming Jupiter could save humanity..

If we helioform Jupiter then:

(a) We're technologically advanced enough to exterminate ourselves completely and likely sterilize the solar system in the process

( We're technologically advanced enough to reach out to the stars

(Loosely based on Sagan's hypothesis that we will only encounter friendly aliens)

[Dooz]

Probably nothing, brown dwarfs are Almost massive enough to begin fusion, but jupiter is simply not massive enough and the temperature created by a nuclear weapon Its to brief it may fuse a couple things but the chain reaction wont last.

[Dodgey]

Well instead of a nuclear weapon what if we used thousands of rectangular, perfectly black Von Neumann devices with a size ratio of 1-4-9. Would that work?

[Scotius]

Still not enough mass to sustain fusion process. Besides, if we could deploy machines able to rapidly convert gases (mostly hydrogen) into hyper-advanced circuitry and conversion facilities, then we would have no need for new quasi-star.