• We are currently performing site maintenance, parts of civfanatics are currently offline, but will come back online in the coming days (this includes any time you see the message "account suspended"). For more updates please see here.

Did NASA Accidentally “Nuke” Jupiter?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Xenocrates

Xenocrates

Deity
Joined
Nov 25, 2005
Messages
2,378
Location
Liverpool
http://www.enterprisemission.com//NukingJupiter.html

Summary:

  • The galileo probe discovered possible life-supporting conditions on Europa (high chance of liquid water).
  • They did not want to risk contaminating Europa, so they smashed Galileo into Jupiter.
  • Galileo contained plutonium and this writer argues that the pressures on Jupiter are enough to cause fission.
  • One month later a strange anomoly was seen on Jupiter which he calculates could correspond to a nuclear blast.

OK, so this is the same Hoagland that gave us the face on Mars stuff a few years ago, but maybe he's on the ball this time. Does anyone feel like checking his calculations?
 
Xenocrates said:
http://www.enterprisemission.com//NukingJupiter.html

Summary:

  • The galileo probe discovered possible life-supporting conditions on Europa (high chance of liquid water).
  • They did not want to risk contaminating Europa, so they smashed Galileo into Jupiter.
  • Galileo contained plutonium and this writer argues that the pressures on Jupiter are enough to cause fission.
  • One month later a strange anomoly was seen on Jupiter which he calculates could correspond to a nuclear blast.

OK, so this is the same Hoagland that gave us the face on Mars stuff a few years ago, but maybe he's on the ball this time. Does anyone feel like checking his calculations?
Click to expand...

The capsule with plutonium probably burned up during the descent, I suppose, so the plutonium was dispersed throughout the atmosphere. I think this theory is a bit overstretched.

(and even if it was true, so what? Jupiter collided with a comet few year ago, which released about 100000000000x more energy than the plutonium in Galileo potentially could have)
 
Oh yeah I forgot something:

"In Arthur C. Clarks 2010, .... a plan which would forever end darkness on Planet Earth. Their plan was to ignite the Hydrogen Atmosphere of Jupiter, thus creating a Second Sun and a Binary Star System. .....

Whats of great interest and extremely significant is that in the acknowledgements of Clarks 2010, he alludes to a communication he got from NASAs Dr. Walter Jastrow who openly admitted that his Lucifer Thesis was of great interest to the Agency - with regards to the Galileo Mission which was then a proposed exploration of Jupiter.
Click to expand...

from http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/text/000txt23x.htm

Supposing NASA was really trying to 'ignite' Jupiter! Supposing that was the real point of the mission? Space, science fiction and conspiracy all in one story! :goodjob:
 
If Shoemaker-Levy couldnt ignite Jupiter, I doubt a NASA spacecraft could do it. My understanding is that Jupiter just isnt big enough to switch on.
 
Xenocrates said:
Oh yeah I forgot something:

from http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/text/000txt23x.htm

Supposing NASA was really trying to 'ignite' Jupiter! Supposing that was the real point of the mission? Space, science fiction and conspiracy all in one story! :goodjob:
Click to expand...

Well, I don't think it is possible to ignite Jupiter, and even if it would, it would probably explode instead of becoming a "mini-sun".

And it would be a pretty damn BIG explosion, it would probably bath Earth with so much radiation it would become sterile :)
 
Winner said:
The capsule with plutonium probably burned up during the descent,

(and even if it was true, so what? Jupiter collided with a comet few year ago, which released about 100000000000x more energy than the plutonium in Galileo potentially could have)
Click to expand...

I dont know how much oxygen there is on Jupiter for burning but it could have melted (but the writer deals with that I think).


Second point is true but the comet must have delivered that energy over a longer time than a nuclear blast (if there was one :) ).
 
Bozo Erectus said:
If Shoemaker-Levy couldnt ignite Jupiter, I doubt a NASA spacecraft could do it. My understanding is that Jupiter just isnt big enough to switch on.
Click to expand...

That's right.

Protostars are ignited when the pressure heats their core enough to start a nuclear fusion.

Jupiter is way too small to become a star. We know extrasolar planets which are much bigger, and still, they're just planets. We even know failed stars, the brown dwarfs, which are 80 times as massive as Jupiter.

I suppose that if we somehow started a fusion reaction in the Jupiter's core, it would explode as a huge hydrogen bomb, because its gravity is not strong enough to contain the reaction.
 
How big would the plutonium pellet have to be, the size of the Earth?:eek:
 
Winner said:
I suppose that if we somehow started a fusion reaction in the Jupiter's core, it would explode as a huge hydrogen bomb, because its gravity is not strong enough to contain the reaction.
Click to expand...
This has got to the plot to a new James Bond movie.
 
I was reading about this on badastronomy.com the other day.

Summary of why this is pure BS:

1. The plutonium on Galileo was spread out among 72 smaller chambers. There was not enough in each one for the critical mass required for an atomic bomb. When you add them all up, then yes, but all the plutonium would have had to have been in one concentrated place, which it wasn't.

2. You couldn't ignite Jupiter's hydrogen because it's the wrong isotope. So even if you blew up an atomic bomb in the atmosphere, this wouldn't ignite anything.

3. Jupiter is not a failed star. It is 80 times too small to contain a stable fusion reaction. You couldn't turn it into a star; it is too small.
 
Bozo Erectus said:
How big would the plutonium pellet have to be, the size of the Earth?:eek:
Click to expand...

I don't know - you can 'ignite' a large bonfire with a small match.:nuke:

I don't even slightly care if this is true; it's a damn good story and that's all that matters! :goodjob:
\
Shek - you're on to something. Maybe another Bond in space is overdue....

PS the last Bond in space 'diamonds are forever', written by Ian Fleming, is mentioned in this remarkable essay 'the political economy of diamonds' http://www.counterpunch.org/naylor03162007.html

Apparently De Beers hired Fleming to write a load of piffle for them. Fiction meets fact and eats it!
 
I am glad the launching of Galileo from Cabo Cañaveral was sucessful and the prove didn't blow up spreading plutonium over all of us.


Besides, Well I have read in nature that Jupiter is also suffering global warming. Maybe is the albedo thing too. :mischief:

From Nature, nontheless http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070402/full/070402-7.html
Lorne Gunter, in the National Post, pointed to warmings on Pluto, Neptune's moon Triton, Jupiter and Mars,
Click to expand...
 
Xenocrates said:
Supposing NASA was really trying to 'ignite' Jupiter! Supposing that was the real point of the mission? Space, science fiction and conspiracy all in one story! :goodjob:
Click to expand...

Is there a conspiracy theory you won't believe? :p
 
Aww... People already disproved those conspiracy theories already before I got here...

That's not fair. :p
 
Jupiter does not have enough mass to become a star, but if we did what the Aschen did in SG-1 4x16 2010 and increase it's mass enough to become a small star it could benefit us by giving us more growing time for crops, warm up Mars, melting their ice caps giving the ability to colonize, etc.
 
SG-17 said:
Jupiter does not have enough mass to become a star, but if we did what the Aschen did in SG-1 4x16 2010 and increase it's mass enough to become a small star it could benefit us by giving us more growing time for crops, warm up Mars, melting their ice caps giving the ability to colonize, etc.
Click to expand...

Or it could hurt us by completely disrupting planetary orbits, causing planets to collide into each other, Jupiter, or Sol. Seems a bit risky to me.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Xen
Liquid water on a Saturnian Moon- move over Europa, your #2 now!
2 3
Replies
50
Views
2K
Eran of Arcadia
Eran of Arcadia
Back
Top Bottom