Is it possible to fly through Jool?

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

First of all, I haven't been playing KSP for very long (a month or two). I was just wondering if jool (being a gas planet) is non-solid in the game (meaning you could fly through it.) I would like to know this before I try (my space program is on a budget)

[Starman4308]

Jool has a "surface", composed mostly of Krakens hungering for your spacecraft. As I understand, you can sometimes dive down below it for a bit, but it's definitely a short, one-way trip.

Even if it weren't solid, Jool's powerful gravity well and thick atmosphere would make sufficiently deep dives impossible to return from.

EDIT: Unless you infiniglided out. That'd probably work. And I'm sure there are people who've managed to launch from low Jool atmosphere back into orbit with sufficiently gigantic rockets.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Starman4308

[NFUN]

If you are going fast enough, you can fly through anything.

Exhibit A (8:25):

[rennsport27]

Well, if cheating was acceptable to you, you should be able to build up some speed, and ramp up time warp so the physics engine "steps" over Jool, effectively letting you fly through it. As long as you don't care that it's not really physically "possible" or care that you'll likely be sacrificing many poor Kerbals to the Kraken attempting to do so, more power to you!

[Jarin]

I've very VERY slowly floated down through Jool's atmosphere, eventually hitting "crush depth" (where my probe just exploded with no other effect) at a speed of about 1.5m/s. It's below the 0m altitude if I recall, though.

[Boonestorm]

One should probably also note that, due to physics (), gas giants have some very strange phases when you proceed to the middle, all of them not really resembling gas at all. So its not that unrealistic that you crash at some point (thats long before the ice/rock core that our gas giants probably have).

Jupiter internal structure at wikipedia

[Taki117]

Here are some photos from the inside of Jool courtesy of the Kassini atmospheric probe.

[Laie]

First of all, I haven't been playing KSP for very long (a month or two). I was just wondering if jool (being a gas planet) is non-solid in the game (meaning you could fly through it.) I would like to know this before I try (my space program is on a budget)

The atmosphere does get very thick and very dense, but eventually there is a definite boundary, 150m below the "surface", where your voyage will stop. This is not a core and nothing you can stand on, however: everything will be destroyed on contact, that's all.

The visible surface is drawn (drawed?) at 0m, so Jool offers the rare oppurtunity to slip below the surface and view a planet from the inside.

[Nemrav]

Kerbals do not get poofed when they land on jool, and last I recall someone has managed to do a return mission from the Jool surface, it was a science expedition last I recall...

[Oafman]

You can fly 250m into Jool (ie altitude -250m). That's when you explode.

[SRV Ron]