Astronomy / Space How far into Jupiter could you go?

Kipper

K
Warning: Not specifically E4 related, but I think I'm amongst people with an interest in this sort of thing...

Watching the new video earlier and it raised a question which I'm sure I've had before but never satisfactorily answered.

So if Jupiter and its like are gas giants - do we know if they have a solid core, what its made of, and how big it is?

Assuming the unbelievable pressure didn't crush your ship/probe as I'm certain it would with any materials we could build them out of today - could you fly into Jupiter one side, and out the other?

To bring it into the subject of Elite, assuming you can enter the atmosphere of the gas giants (which I think is great), and assuming there's no solid core or its too far inside the planet to ever reach, how will we know how far is too far? What could be so far into these planets that we might find?
 

I_am_Jon

I_am_Jon
For the game maybe a hull pressure reading (like the temp in elite) when it gets too high you take damage / implode.

I guess gas giants have a liquid layer and solid core somewhere. Maybe gas becomes liquid due to the pressure and solid core made up of heavier elements. As you get deeper it will get hotter as well.

Edit: looks like it is mostly liquid hydrogen & helium with a relatively small solid core: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/jupiter/interior.html
 
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Steve O B Have

Steve O B Have
Kipper said:
Warning: Not specifically E4 related, but I think I'm amongst people with an interest in this sort of thing...

Watching the new video earlier and it raised a question which I'm sure I've had before but never satisfactorily answered.

So if Jupiter and its like are gas giants - do we know if they have a solid core, what its made of, and how big it is?

Assuming the unbelievable pressure didn't crush your ship/probe as I'm certain it would with any materials we could build them out of today - could you fly into Jupiter one side, and out the other?

To bring it into the subject of Elite, assuming you can enter the atmosphere of the gas giants (which I think is great), and assuming there's no solid core or its too far inside the planet to ever reach, how will we know how far is too far? What could be so far into these planets that we might find?
Click to expand...

Didn't Arthur C Clarke postulate that Jupiter might have a diamond core? I would've thought that gas giants would be treated in a reality type scenario. Protecting against the vacuum of space is not a difficult thing, not nearly as difficult as protecting against increasingly dense atmospheres. If you look at something like James Camerons Deepsea Challenger, it has a steel shell 2.5in thick to protect against 16,500psi pressures. Air pressure in our atmosphere at sea level is around 14psi.

Take a planet like Venus where the atmosphere is 1300psi and things get complicated for a spaceship. Expand that to Jupiter or Saturn and things start getting really interesting. The surface pressure (cloud layer) and the atmosphere is only 29psi but as you go deeper it rapidly changes to the point where it shifts to 4500 GPa or 652 669 820psi and that combined with an estimated temperature of 35,726 degrees celsius and you have a severely hostile environment.

Long story short - flying around inside a gas giant is a risky business.
 

Rroff

R
I suspect a planet like Jupiter quickly becomes similiar to a mousse like consistancy and then as the pressure builds up closer to the core more like rubber that you wouldn't actually be able to penetrate without significant force probably about half way before you get to the fully solid core. (This is a completely unscientific guess).

Jupiter's gravity well is immense so realistically as a space craft you won't be able to get very close to it other than using a slingshot maneuver to pass close and back out again. (EDIT probably something covered in frontier, etc. but I only ever played the original elite).
 
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Sterlino

Sterlino
It's a nice discussion here... but sure you know about the fact that is impossibile to be near to jupiter with newton laws.

And if you played enough in frontier you surely experienced it.. when u go near a
giant planet there is a point where, no matter how much strong is your propulsion, you cannot escape his gravity.

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

ofc except if you have an anti-gravity engine aboard of your ship. (and would be nice to see it in elite 4).
 

Kipper

K
I'm sure there'd be a good market for more powerful thrusters in E4!

Those who invest can make landings on higher G worlds without crashing, and can escape again....
 

wibbleboy

wibbleboy
This reminds me of Futurama;

Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?
Professor Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
 

Steve O B Have

Steve O B Have
Kipper said:
I'm sure there'd be a good market for more powerful thrusters in E4!

Those who invest can make landings on higher G worlds without crashing, and can escape again....
Click to expand...

Expanding on that I think it would be cool that there are some missions that require a certain capability limited to certain types of ships.
 

deej

deej
If the object is solid enough to withstand the pressures, you can go all the way through Jupiter quite easily...
 

Rroff

R
deej said:
If the object is solid enough to withstand the pressures, you can go all the way through Jupiter quite easily...
Click to expand...

You'd also need to be able to exert enough pressure to pass through the highly compressed matter. Also not sure if Jupiter's mass is high enough that it has a fully fluid core.
 

deej

deej
Yeah, I think there is fluid at some point. I remember reading somewhere that a few of our gas giants are totally transparent when scanning them with microwave equipment. I was shocked.
 

SuperG

S
I have seen discovery doc who say it might ave a solid core but are not sure.
Also it hase a huge fluid core of extreem comoressed gasses to a very debse fluid with metalic caristics. Thats why jupiter has a very powerfull magnetic field extending very far.
Also this roduces heat and jupiter has a lot ofradiation.

If you want to go very deep you need a space ship with extreemthick hull to withsand extreem pressure. Problem is you need twice extreem thrusters to overcome its huge gravity and extreem mass of your ship. And thrusters wich can withstand highpressure to.

It make no sense to equip space ships with thrusters that are so powerfull to escape a gasgiant gravity but kill in normal space its crew due to high deadly G forces wenn go full thrust. But there are also smaller less gravity gasplanets where could go in.

Such a extreem hull ship would be like a Space tank slowly in agility for its size but could take lot of hits. Would be build like a giant thuster with a extreem hull on top of it.
It would be so specialized it not suitable for normal flight or use.
 

DraQ

D
Well, just below Jupiter's visible atmospheric layers ('just' referring to planetary scale) you have pressure that's so high that hydrogen goes supercritical and smoothly transits onto liquid. Then you have thisck layer of liquid hydrogen and inside even thicker one of metallic hydrogen (hydrogen pressed so hard that nuclei are stripped of electrons that just jump around like in liquid metal). At the centre you have a relatively small core that's probably solid and might be rocky, metallic, or even diamond.

Anyway, for the purpose of flying into Jupiter it wouldn't differ much from flying into Earth, except instead of crashing into a water ocean you'd crash into an ocean of supercritical hydrogen.
Of course that's assuming you'd reach the 'surface' without getting compacted into small, mostly metallic trash pellet that would plop into the ocean and continue to sink slowly all the way to the core.

Sterlino said:
It's a nice discussion here... but sure you know about the fact that is impossibile to be near to jupiter with newton laws.
Click to expand...
Actually that's bull.

Jupiter's surface* gravity is around mere 2.5G.
That's pretty harsh - a bit too much to walk around - but even a Panther would have no problem hovering using just manoeuvring thrusters and such a gravity is not really risky for a human.

*) I assume the "surface" to be somewhere around 1 bar atmospheric pressure, in either case it shouldn't make much difference, Jupiter is large, surface is far from the center so the gravity gradient isn't very steep.

And if you played enough in frontier you surely experienced it.. when u go near a
giant planet there is a point where, no matter how much strong is your propulsion, you cannot escape his gravity.
Click to expand...
That's also bull.

I have a save with a Harrier safely landed on Alioth 4 (about 6 Jupiter masses) in FFE, thanks to the game not being able to quite implement the idea of a *gas* giant properly. :p

In FE2 it would be trickier to land due to less precise thruster control and unforgiving surface collisions, but I'm pretty sure I'd be able to land on Jupiter in FE2 with a fast craft, though probably not take off.

Anyway, I did enter gas giants' atmospheres in FE2 numerous times - rings look really nifty from below, especially with all the clouds. Sadly it doesn't work as well in FFE where many atmospheres are missing or non rendered and there is no clouds.

Now, getting near some dense, compact object, like a white dwarf or neutron star (not present in Frontier games, sadly) could be dangerous even if you moved fast enough to not fall to the surface (propulsion wouldn't help, you'd have to move fast enough before fly-by), because gravitational gradient would be steep and resulting tidal forces might rip you apart.

Fun fact - I knew some dudes who did a competition once for a pilot who would manage to make a closest approach to Sirius B - the winner came so close that he had white sky over head.
Equatorial bulge makes calculations uncertain, but he seemed to go just slightly above the surface before slingshooting back into space.

Edit:
Also, kudos to Steve O B Have for his post on the previous page.
 
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