out of curiousity, if our sun one day blew up or died, and human existance still lived on, would it be possible for mankind to launch a nuke, or hydogen bomb or something like that into jupiture to set off a chain reaction that would creatate a 2nd sun?
the chemical makeup of jupiture is mainly hydrogen gas and liquid hydrogen... im not a chemic, but would this be possible? jupiture gives off powerfull magnetic fields, heat, radio and x-rays... is it not possible jupiture was a failed sun?


furthermore: id like to add that i think jupiture is not the biggest planet as for the fact it only has a very tiny core of rock, and the rest of it is just gas, is gas considered to be part of the size of a PLANET? which is descibed as a solid mass.?


Your Thoughts? Comments?



Another Idea-----> we should turn venus into a 2nd earth, it is quiet possible. if we droped Algae into venus it would eat all the C02 and create oxygen, the clouds would thin out and it would rain, thus cooling the heated planet. then we could land on it and live there. IT IS possible but yes it would take tousands of years.




Hey with the way we treat this planet we aint gonna have it for long :) we could make jupiture a sun and have the more genicitanly sound humans move to venus. Now wouldnt that be great !!!

A good point in there. W emeasure Earth's size from hard edge to hard edge, not inlcuding atmosphere. Perhaps we should measure Jupiter the same way. Perhaps we need to have two measurements for Jovian worlds: planet diameter and atmospheric diameter. I know at the moment generally atmospheric diameter is used for the gas giants.

Its an interesting topic. I just have a slight problem with the logic behind it. Yeah I know Im one to preach logic:p . You could do this, maybe. But thats only if you want Jupiter to become the center of gravity, meaning that everything will be pulled towards it, including earth. It is far enough away to not "toast us."

My point being; how would we revolve around it? Wouldnt our seasons get screwed up? Wouldnt the moon get thrown out of whack? While the subject is very interesting I think that you need to take gravity into consideration.

Its an interesting topic. I just have a slight problem with the logic behind it. Yeah I know Im one to preach logic:p . You could do this, maybe. But thats only if you want Jupiter to become the center of gravity, meaning that everything will be pulled towards it, including earth. It is far enough away to not "toast us."

My point being; how would we revolve around it? Wouldnt our seasons get screwed up? Wouldnt the moon get thrown out of whack? While the subject is very interesting I think that you need to take gravity into consideration.

-----> we should turn venus into a 2nd earth, it is quiet possible. if we droped Algae into venus it would eat all the C02 and create oxygen, the clouds would thin out and it would rain, thus cooling the heated planet. then we could land on it and live there. IT IS possible but yes it would take tousands of years.

It would be possible if the Venusia atmosphere didnt have toxic gases in it. And the surface wasnt volcanic. You should really stick to mars for teraforming. Even if Mars really doesnt have a Ozone layer.:D

yes gravity would have to be added to the problem, but if mankind was on the brink of extinction, would we have time to worry about what MAY happen.... if the our sun died the orbits would be screwed up anyways so we would just have to risk it.


as for venus, i dont think there is any volcanic activity on the planet, (unless you can prove me otherwise), and yes the automosphere is very toxic with what the sulfuric acid floating around, but that is why i mentioned that such a posscess of inhabiting the planet would take tousands upon tousands of years. there is sulfuric acid in our atomosphere... just not as much. hmmm but acid rain would kill off any plants we create on venus.... but if our ozone really is getting smaller as some say, then im sure there is hope for venus :)

Jupiter is not big enough to be a sun. It falls far below the necessary mass for it to self ignite. Should some way be made that such ignition would take place, it's life span would be limited both because of its mass and that the ignition sequence would not be sustainable.

Atmosphere has aways been considered part of a planet. This is the reason for the measurement. I think earth is the exception, only because we live on this planet and the surface of the earth is of more concern to us. We don't measure Venus this way.

Venus has many problems to solve that make it difficult to consider as a terraform candidate, even though it is considered our sister planet. Surface temperature of 900° (if I remember correctly) sulfuric compounds, even in the atmosphere. Meaning that any algea or bacteria would have to be able to live in acid.
Worse, the planet keeps the same side to the sun. we would need to find some way of increasing its spin to get a day and night cycle. All this comes from the top of my head and without research. With a bit of research there are other problems that would come to light.

Mars no longer has volcanic or tectonic activity. Venus is very active.

As for the atmosphere of Venus being toxic, well, so was Earth's once. venus has more to work with than Mars, has a better gravity, et cetera.

Could humans breathe on Venus after some serious terraforming? Well, look at what we already breathe. Humans can exist at all sorts of oxygen concentrations, with all sorts of icky chemicals in the mix.


Volcanic stuff on Venus (http://windows.arc.nasa.gov/tour/link=/venus/interior/V_volcano_formation.html&edu=high&fr=t)

Wet1, I didn't know Venus had become face-locked. I thought it was spinning, but the opposite direction.

yes our planet was very harsh inthat no organism could survive, yet some way, some how, one lil spec of life spawned.


why cant the same be true for venus, for all we know life could be spawning there now :p



from "wet1"s replys i do think thats its highly impossible to create a 2nd sun, but i hold it to be true that it was simply a failed sun when our solar system was created.

if only we had a time machine :)

It is also a shame that we can not hang around a few millenia to see if chance would repeat itself or whether the cosmic bombardment had more to do with the initiation of life on earth than originally thought.

Jupiter's core is a rock? I thought it was liquid metalic Hydrogen.

it has a very small rock core, im not sure what this subtance is made of, perhaps im reading outdated books....

Jupiter (http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/jupiter.html)

Venus stuff (http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/venus.html)

my astronomy book say "liquid metallic hydrogen"

basicly, it is hydrogen under such tremendous heat and pressure that it "attatches" to the periodic table and acts as a metal.

Originally posted by On Radioactive Waves
my astronomy book say "liquid metallic hydrogen"

basicly, it is hydrogen under such tremendous heat and pressure that it "attatches" to the periodic table and acts as a metal.
You mean each hydrogen atom in there carries around its own little copy of the periodic table? :bugeye:

- Warren

And wet1 is right -- Jupiter does not support fusion because it is not massive enough. There would be no way to "start it up." If Jupiter were massive enough, it would already be fusing -- since it's not, it never will fuse.

- Warren

The amount of mass required to ignite a low luminosity main sequence star ranges from about .05% to .1% solar mass.

Jupiter represents about .001% solar mass. It would take at least 60 Jupiters worth of mass to ignite a star.

they however say that jupiture once gave off a low amount of light....
i think were gonna need NASA on this one :)

Originally posted by A Canadian
they however say that jupiture once gave off a low amount of light....
i think were gonna need NASA on this one :)
This is correct -- Jupiter actually radiates away about twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun. Where does the energy come from? Jupiter is slowly contracting, under the relentless pull of its own gravity. The contraction raises the pressure and temperature inside the planet, which then glows in the infrared. This energy slowly escapes the surface.

- Warren

You mean each hydrogen atom in there carries around its own little copy of the periodic table?

Exactly. They once tried to carry a CRC reference book, but as Hydrogen was the smallest element, it had to resort to a good'ol Srgt. Welch table

I think you're all missing something. I believe it requires more than simply mass to create a burning star. Young stars, I believe, eat heavy water. Jupiter never had the required materials to become a star, regardless of mass.

Oxygen and Hydrogen make what again....
havnt u ever done the experiment in school where you seperated hydrogen and oxygen molicules from water, and then u light the hydrogen gas ;)

my teacher almost lost his eye brows...

Oxygen and hydrogen can indeed make water. Does this mean Jupiter holds heavy water?

Originally posted by Adam
I think you're all missing something. I believe it requires more than simply mass to create a burning star. Young stars, I believe, eat heavy water. Jupiter never had the required materials to become a star, regardless of mass.
Uh... what? The conditions for thermonuclear fusion are temperature and pressure. Mass directly corresponds to core temperature and pressure.

Besides -- the Sun and Jupiter have virtually the same composition. What else do you think is different about them?

- Warren

I just recall learning that stars are fueled on heavy water when young. Those that don't have it, or enough of it, fail. Is this not correct?

Originally posted by Adam
I just recall learning that stars are fueled on heavy water when young. Those that don't have it, or enough of it, fail. Is this not correct?


correct i guess...
thats why im saying jupiture was a failed sun

Originally posted by Adam
I just recall learning that stars are fueled on heavy water when young. Those that don't have it, or enough of it, fail. Is this not correct?
Well, I've taken a number of courses on stellar evolution, and never once has any dependence on heavy water ever been mentioned.

Heavy water is D2O -- water with two deuterons and an oxygen atom. Heavy water was not formed in the Big Bang -- so I don't know where it would have come from in the first place if it were really needed for stellar fusion.

Futhermore, the energy liberated by main-sequence stars is virtually entirely due to the proton-proton chain -- which wouldn't even work properly with dueterons.

Can you provide any links or articles to what you're talking about?

- Warren

i say we send the biggest bomb in the known world into jupiture and just see what happens :)

science is all about experimenting aint it :P

It was news in New Scientist or something about a year ago I think, maybe a bit further back. New discovery, yougn stars burning heavy water. I can't find anything yet, but I'll keep searching.

D20

could it ever be DHO?

what about Tritium? is that not considered heavy water?

Originally posted by On Radioactive Waves
D20
could it ever be DHO?
Or DOH? ;)

Certainly, that happens all the time.

what about Tritium? is that not considered heavy water?
Nope, tritium is a radio-isotope of hydrogen with two neutrons. It has nothing to do with water... unless perhaps there's a bit of oxygen and a heat source hanging around.

- Warren

Originally posted by CounslerCoffee
But thats only if you want Jupiter to become the center of gravity, meaning that everything will be pulled towards it, including earth. It is far enough away to not "toast us."



Its gravitational influence is, of course, a function if its mass. How would its mass change by "nuking it"?

both fission and fusion convert mass to energy, the effest of "nuking" Jupiter would result in mass converting to energy which escapes via EMR and solar wind

Originally posted by On Radioactive Waves
both fission and fusion convert mass to energy, the effest of "nuking" Jupiter would result in mass converting to energy which escapes via EMR and solar wind

Right. So, I do not see how Jupiter could become a "center of gravity" & pull things towards it (more than it does now). The mass would obviously have to increase for that to happen.

yes gravity would have to be added to the problem, but if mankind was on the brink of extinction, would we have time to worry about what MAY happen.... if the our sun died the orbits would be screwed up anyways so we would just have to risk it.
I see a huge flaw here.
Our sun before dying will become a red giant - which means that the Earth will burn. Of course some scientists say that we could distance our planet from it, but then we would be so close to Jupiter that you had to take earth back again.

Furthermore - when the sun will die it will either become a white dwarf (I think that I remember that a white dwarf becomes a black hole after it eventually is squeezed by gravity)

If that is so its gravity will stay in place and thus we would have (I think so at least) problems orbiting our new Jupiter star, because of the remaining enourmous gravity of the white dwarf Sun

Originally posted by Avatar

Furthermore - when the sun will die it will either become a white dwarf (I think that I remember that a white dwarf becomes a black hole after it eventually is squeezed by gravity)




The Sun is not massive enough to become a black hole. It will become a red giant first. It is thought that this is when Earth will be destroyed; the greatly distended outer layers of the Sun should offer enough resistance so that the the Earth will slow in its orbital motion & eventually spiral inward to the Sun & be destroyed. Anyway, the Sun should eventually become a white dwarf.

A stars mass needs to be over about 8 solar masses to become a black hole, after it goes super nova.

Nope, tritium is a radio-isotope of hydrogen with two neutrons. It has nothing to do with water

well wouldn't the extra neutron give it more energy potential in comparison with Deuterium?

how many solar masses would be required for a neutron star?

I have read that the sun will become so big that it would burn the earth where it stands, if it is not pulled in the sun first.

"Stars much bigger than the sun have a much shorter life and they go out literally with a bang! They shrine steadily for a much shorter time and then swell up humdreds of times to become a supergiant star. This soon blasts itself apart in a gigantic explosion we call a supernova. Whats left of the star collapses into a tiny very dense neutron star. Or it carries on collapsing to become a black hole"


Most likely our sun will become a Giant, then planetary nebula and eventully into a white dwarf.

so mankind wont die instally if the sun where to go...

You mean each hydrogen atom in there carries around its own little copy of the periodic table?


exactly. it's kinda like a guide-book for atoms...makes them into better, more well-adjusted/rounded atoms.

Even if it was possible, by the time the nuke made it to jupiter we'd probably be gone. Besides, without sunlight life couldn't exist.

Originally posted by Avatar
I have read that the sun will become so big that it would burn the earth where it stands, if it is not pulled in the sun first.


Depends on how you define "burn the Earth". Certainly all life would die because the oceans would boil away, etc. But as far as I know, current theory has it that only the very outer, tenuous extended part of the Sun would evelope the Earth (before the Earth spiraled in to the Sun, some 10^3 years later).

Jupiter would not become a second sun. A nuke would literally do NOTHING to the planet. If you launched ALL our nukes at jupiter, it would have no effect. A few years ago it took a hit from a comet that left a few blemishes on it, but that certainly didnt make it into a star now did it? The energy released from that comet was much more than from any kind of nuke. To have a star, you need enough mass and Jupiter just doesnt have enough. The amount of deuterium in the planet doesn't really have any effect on it's potential as a second sun. Young stars don't "eat" heavy water since teh temperatures in a star are much to high for water molecules to exist. I don't want to sound mean or anything but this thread is full of half truths and misconceptions. Bottom line, Jupiter will never be a star, whether we want it to (and why would we?) or not.

The question really boils down to: is there enough pressure to sustain the nuclear reaction. While observations indicate that a gasgiant of 0.08 solarmass may ignite itself and become a brown dwarf, Jupiter is nowhere near with 0,001 solarmass, but wait! igniting the nuclear reaction is something different than sustaining it. Along with the pressure enough heat must be build before the reaction starts, after that the heat mainly comes from the reaction itself and there must be some pressure to sustain the reaction, this sustain pressure treshold migh be lower than the ignition treshold....

But still, maybe we can one day ignite object of 0,06 or 0,05 solar and gravity will keep the flame burning, but Jupiter is nowhere in this league.

About terra forming venus:

- We have the algae but there is this sulfuric acid on venus

On oceanfloors we have discovered bacteria near "black smokers" that live from hot sulfuric water.

Maybe Genetic engineering can someday merge the sulfur metabolism of these bacteria with photosynthesis of the algae.

here's an idear: guide as many asteroïds from troughout the solar system to Jupiter and let them smash down on it,...see what happens next.
It would add enough mass to ignite eventually: if you'd have a few astroïds with the size of a moon, would it?

gosh: what odd seasons we'd have!

I am afraid there is not enough estimated mass to the asteroid and belt to create the needed mass for Jupiter to ignite. Earth would not long be habital with 2 suns in our system at those distances.

You people have been watching to much Space Odyssey 2010...

All this terraforming stuff has been interesting though. How would we go about terraforming Mars? And wasn't there a moon around Jupiter that people thought might be terraformable?

Terraformable, as in making earthlike, probably not. There's just too little light out there. Plus there's Jupiter's radiation.

Mars and Venus are within the habitable zone of the sun, so unless we can move large objects around, they're all we've got in this system to work with.

>No actually there's titan, where probably life is under the surface,

and there our own moon can also be made habitable: not terraforming it but hermetically closed bases, imagine some kind of dome,....

but Venus is definately way to hot! hehehe it's too close to the sun.

Mars is terraformable, definately but we're getting of topic here,...sorry!;)

Venus is the nearest planet to Earth, and the closest to Eath in size and composition. Unlike Mars, which has rather uneventfull and dull weather patterns, Venus has a very active and exciting weather system at upper-levels of the atmosphere, but even simpler weather at surface-levels than Mars has.

Venus' atmosphere is comprised of mainly carbon dioxide with a small amount of nitrogen and only some traces of various other chemicals. Water vapor, which is a important element in the weather on Earth, is almost non-existant in the atmosphere of Venus.

Near the surface Venus is much hotter than Earth with an average surface temperature of 467 degrees Celsius. Interestingly the temperature at upper-levels of the atmosphere is colder than those of Earth. Thus the temperature decreases rapidly with increasing altitude(see figure below)

Pressure on Venus is also many times greater than the pressure of Earth, with an average pressure at the surface of 90 bars, the equivalent of around a depth of 900 meters underwater here on Earth. The high surface pressure patially accounts for the high surface temperatures on Venus. Since the air is being compressed the ability to absorb thermal radiation also increases. But, the main reason for high temperatures on Venus is the 'runaway greenhouse effect.'

http://moon.pr.erau.edu/~holmesg/t3213.gif


http://moon.pr.erau.edu/~holmesg/p3213.gif


The Runaway Greenhouse Effect

The temperature on Venus is hotter than the temperature of Mercury even though Venus is nearly twice the distance from the sun than Mercury. The abnormally high temperatures are a result of a process called the 'Runaway Greenhouse' effect. Unlike the nitrogen and oxygen that are predominant in the atmosphere of the Earth, the carbon dioxide of Venus' atmosphere traps the thermal energy from the sun inside the atmosphere. The fact that Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere means that there is more carbon dioxide compressed in a small volume of atmosphere and therefore more heat contained. Bacuase of it's slightly closer distance to the sun, Venus' potential for liquid water was eliminated and carbon dioxide dominated the atmospheric composition. Scientists postulate that Venus has reached it's maximum heat potential and currently has a constant atmospheric temperature.

http://moon.pr.erau.edu/~holmesg/geenhouse.jpg
As shown here some solar energy makes it through the cloud cover to the surface. Infrared radiation from the warm surfave tries to make its way out of the atmosphere, but is absorbed by the carbon dioxide, causing aditional surface warming.

Atmospheric Circulation

Like Mars the atmospheric circulation on Venus is less complex than the circulation on Earth. Venus has no large oceans, which greatly influence atmospheric circulation on Earth by changing temperatures and directions of wind. Venus also has a slow rotation rate (243 earth days equals one day on Venus) which practically eliminates the coriolis effect. The combination of these conditions creates a near perfect Hadley cell that extends all the way from the equator to the pole in each hemisphere, where warm air at the equator rises and flow towards the pole then sinking at the pole and the flows back toward the equator as shown below.

Venus Statistics

Mass (kg) ......................................... 4.869e+24
Mass (Earth = 1) .................................... 0.81476
Equatorial radius (km) .............................. 6,051.8
Equatorial radius (Earth = 1) ........................ 0.9488
Mean density (gm/cm^3) ................................... 5.25

Mean distance from the Sun (km) ................. 108,200,000
Mean distance from the Sun (Earth = 1) ............... 0.7233
Rotational period (days) .......................... -243.0187
Orbital period (days) ............................... 224.701
Mean orbital velocity (km/sec) ........................ 35.02

Orbital eccentricity ................................. 0.0068
Tilt of axis ......................................... 177.36°
Orbital inclination ................................... 3.394°

Equatorial surface gravity (m/sec^2) ................... 8.87
Equatorial escape velocity (km/sec) ................... 10.36

Visual geometric albedo ................................ 0.65
Magnitude (Vo) ......................................... -4.4
Mean surface temperature .............................. 482°C
Atmospheric pressure (bars) .............................. 92
Atmospheric composition
Carbon dioxide ...................................... 96%
Nitrogen ............................................ 3+%
Trace amounts of: Sulfur dioxide, water vapor, carbon
monoxide, argon, helium, neon, hydrogen chloride, and
hydrogen fluoride.



http://moon.pr.erau.edu/~holmesg/Venus2.jpg

source (http://moon.pr.erau.edu/~holmesg/venus.html)

what I see is that we could make a "city in the clouds" like in the STARWARS episode VI
would suit as for temperature as for pressure

yeah, but first we should have our genes sequenced to live a longer and preferable, never ending life: in order to see this happening! :rolleyes: :p