Did we break Jupiter?

NASA has recently crashed their "Galileo" space probe into the orbit of Jupiter, expecting it to just burn up.
The problem with this scenario is that the Galileo is powered by plutonium and iridium among other things.
The fear was, that crashing the Galileo into Jupiter might cause it to compress so much that it will begin a nuclear chain reaction, the odds of this were very small, however the chance was there but NASA went ahead anyway.. Now this is showing up..

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See the big black spot in Jupiter? That's some scary #! Here's some more pics (all with links)..

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So.. it sounds like they've pretty much sent this nuclear warhead into Jupiter and and now we just have to wait and watch, it could cause a never ending chain reaction and turn Jupiter into a Sun, it could turn Jupiter all black, or it could be nothing..

I don't know, I'm no astronomer, but I know when something scares the # out of me.. and this does.

Even if the odds were 99.9% on their favour, it was a stupid risk not worth taking methinks.

At the same time, i can't do anything about it and i doubt it's going to affect us for a while.. But who the hell do these people think they are?! Messing with something as big as Jupiter is a big deal, not something you do on a whim, it could eventually stuff up the whole solar system, tho i doubt it.. but gosh, you never know. Which is exactly the point.

www.cyberspaceorbit.com...

Have you seen the movie 2010?

The monoliths turn Jupiter into a sun to give rise to life on Europa.

Dunno if it's fesible to do this or what kind of impact it'd have on the rest of the solar system.

Perhaps this was a secret intention?

And if it happens they could say, oh we had no idea such a thing could happen.

Either way I doubt doing that to Jupiter was good.

I heard about that a week ago (I saw it as a link of the day on www.bluesnews.com)

Originally, they passed it off as a shadow, saying it was the shadow of one of Jupiter's moons, but that was proved wrong when a junior astroner (Not even a pro yet...funny) proved it wrong by showing that the moon was on the OTHER side.

It scares me too, truth be told. Jupiter is a planet that, if I understand correctly, hasn't "Formed" yet. It's a gas giant, very volatile, and it is the only thing that protects our planet from "Disaster Asteroids" that would normally crash into us. (Its gravitational pull causes everything to home in on it)

I believe Jupiter is the Star that never was...


as rocky said, I could've been a contendah

I was watching a Discovery channel program where they said NASA was kicking around the idea of colonizing the ice moon around Jupiter. (I'm sorry, I don't know the name.)

They say all we need to do is heat the planet up and live under the ice in bubbles (ala Sea lab 2021)

Maybe they felt like trying it out. I better pack my bags.

It's Europa, in 2010 its where the monolith lands after igniting Jupiter


2010 the movie not the year :p

not making any predictions lol

[Edited on 3-11-2003 by Lysergic]

I was listening to Coast to Coast AM a while ago and Richard Hoagland was on talking about how he thinks that the nuclear canisters were crushed by the pressure in Jupiters depths. He thinks the exploded and spewed material into the upper atmosphere making the spot.

I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty doubtful that a tiny space probe had anything to do with this. I prefer the 2010 monolith theory anyway...

it's no "accident" that's for sure, i'm sure there's a reason to it. If not many.

You would think they'd really want to attempt to ignite Jupiter?

Is that even possible?

I wonder why didn't they just have it come back towards earth and they could've recycled what they could?

Have you noticed that NASA has been crashing a lot of landers lately? We had two crash on mars, lost contact with another one, and now this. Strange.

I'm a layman, so I can't really give an astute analysis....but whoever is at the controls needs to play more MS Flight Simulator.

Or, on second thought, maybe that's the problem.

Do you speak of the Mars probes that have all be lost?

Some say they think it's cause of an alien presence, I am not sure how much faith I put into that but certainly I can't rule it out.

Remember when Russia had the photo of the.. I think 15km long object? Wasn't it near Mars and it was filiming it and suddely it was lost as well the transmission ended.

I remember seeing a thread a long time ago but the name of it escapes me.

This is a fascinating topic - I'm putting it in my favorites list~
thanks guys!

intelgurl

Wait, so there's a way to track topics??

I could use that because I always forget which topics I post in.

Click favorites on the top left at the start of the thread

Ah hah, I see! Cool....

Interesting..... I'll look more into this and post more info.............

But can the plutonium on Galileo explode like a bomb? No, it can't. That's because it's the wrong kind of plutonium. Like all elements, Pu has different isotopes. This means that in the nucleus of the atom, there are different numbers of neutrons. All plutonium atoms have 94 protons, but some of these atoms might have 144 neutrons, or 145. These isotopes are designated by the total number of protons plus neutrons. Plutonium 239, for example, has 94 protons and 145 neutrons.

These isotopes have different properties. The atomic nucleus of Pu239, for example, will split when hit by a neutron. This releases a lot of energy, as well as more neutrons. These hit other Pu239 atoms, which split, generating more neutrons, etc. This is called a chain reaction, and if there is enough Pu239 you get a runaway process, which is what powers an atomic (fission) bomb.

However, not all isotopes of Pu do this. Pu238, for example, won't. Although it can split, the products of this fission (called the daughters of the fission) just don't have the right characteristics to create a chain reaction, let alone a runaway process. In other words, the Pu238 aboard Galileo is simply not capable of exploding like a bomb.

While I do not think that the earth probe caused this, I am interested in why professional astronomers were quick to debunk this black space as nothing more than a shadow only to have an amateur point out that it wasn't. I'm sure the professional astronomers knew where that moon was and apparently are intent on covering up this black spot for some reason.

This reminds me of Chuck Shramek and the debunking that astronomers tried on him regarding that object trailing the Hale-Bopp comet only to find out that they themselves saw and photographed it.

I'll be the first to suggest extraterrestrial interference on Jupiter. I've read enough to think that something is going on over there. If not Jupiter or Titan, then at least on Saturn. Though if Saturn is getting fooled around with, then its not much of a jump to suggest Jupiter is as well.

If the hole continues to get bigger, we will have to be told more on what it could be. There will be very little ability to hide people's view of the dark spot if it continues to grow.

[Edited on 4-11-2003 by heelstone]

I'm no astromomer either... however...
Jupiter has many moons. At least four large ones almost the size of Earth. So the dark spot could be a shadow caused by any one of the moons. Unless I suppose this astronomer you mentioned proved that none of the moons was causing the shadow. Why the # would NASA want to set Jupiter ablaze? Thats the most rediculous thing I'v ever heard. The radiation and heat caused by such a thing would make colonization of the moons even harder. Oh wait, it must be the aliens, I forgot about them.

could you imagine the effect of two suns for earth? you are all stating how jupiters moons would be affected but think of the increased gravitational field ? depending on how bright it is it could cause the entire earth to be like daytime 24/7 the gravity would almost certainly affect the other planets near it as well.