The planet Jupiter has no stable floor – no floor just like the grass or dust you tread right here on Earth. There’s nothing to stroll on, and no place to land a spaceship.
However how can that be? If Jupiter doesn’t have a floor, what does it have? How can it maintain collectively?
Whilst a professor of physics who research every kind of surprising phenomena, I understand the idea of a world and not using a floor is tough to fathom. But a lot about Jupiter stays a thriller, whilst NASA’s robotic probe Juno begins its ninth yr orbiting this unusual planet.
Jupiter’s mass is two-and-a-half instances that of all the opposite planets within the photo voltaic system mixed.
First, Some Details
Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Solar, is between Mars and Saturn. It’s the biggest planet within the photo voltaic system, large enough for greater than 1,000 Earths to suit inside, with room to spare.
Whereas the 4 interior planets of the photo voltaic system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – are all product of stable, rocky materials, Jupiter is a fuel large with a composition just like the Solar; it’s a roiling, stormy, wildly turbulent ball of fuel. Some locations on Jupiter have winds of greater than 400 mph (about 640 kilometers per hour), about thrice sooner than a Class 5 hurricane on Earth.
A photograph of the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, taken by NASA’s Juno spacecraft in 2017. (Credit score: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Sean Doran)
Trying to find Strong Floor
Begin from the highest of Earth’s ambiance, go down about 60 miles (roughly 100 kilometers), and the air stress repeatedly will increase. Finally, you hit Earth’s floor, both land or water.
Evaluate that with Jupiter: Begin close to the highest of its principally hydrogen and helium ambiance, and like on Earth, the stress will increase the deeper you go. However on Jupiter, the stress is immense.
Because the layers of fuel above you push down increasingly, it’s like being on the backside of the ocean – however as a substitute of water, you’re surrounded by fuel. The stress turns into so intense that the human physique would implode; you’ll be squashed.
Go down 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), and the new, dense fuel begins to behave unusually. Ultimately, the fuel turns right into a type of liquid hydrogen, creating what might be considered the biggest ocean within the photo voltaic system, albeit an ocean with out water.
Go down one other 20,000 miles (about 32,000 kilometers), and the hydrogen turns into extra like flowing liquid metallic, a cloth so unique that solely just lately, and with nice problem, have scientists reproduced it within the laboratory. The atoms on this liquid metallic hydrogen are squeezed so tightly that its electrons are free to roam.
Remember that these layer transitions are gradual, not abrupt; the transition from regular hydrogen fuel to liquid hydrogen after which to metallic hydrogen occurs slowly and easily. At no level is there a pointy boundary, stable materials, or floor.
An illustration of Jupiter’s inside layers. One bar is roughly equal to the air stress at sea stage on Earth. NASA/JPL-Caltech
Scary to the Core
Finally, you’d attain the core of Jupiter. That is the central area of Jupiter’s inside, and to not be confused with a floor.
Scientists are nonetheless debating the actual nature of the core’s materials. Probably the most favored mannequin: It’s not stable, like rock, however extra like a scorching, dense, and probably metallic combination of liquid and stable.
The stress at Jupiter’s core is so immense that it might be like 100 million Earth atmospheres urgent down on you– or two Empire State buildings on high of every sq. inch of your physique.
However the stress wouldn’t be your solely drawback. A spacecraft attempting to succeed in Jupiter’s core could be melted by the acute warmth – 35,000 levels Fahrenheit (20,000 levels Celsius). That’s thrice hotter than the floor of the Solar.
A picture taken of Jupiter by Voyager 1. Observe the Nice Crimson Spot, a storm massive sufficient to carry three Earths. (Credit score: NASA/JPL)
Jupiter Gelps Earth
Jupiter is a bizarre and forbidding place. But when Jupiter weren’t round, it’s doable human beings won’t exist.
That’s as a result of Jupiter acts as a protect for the interior planets of the photo voltaic system, together with Earth. With its large gravitational pull, Jupiter has altered the orbit of asteroids and comets for billions of years.
With out Jupiter’s intervention, a few of that area particles may have crashed into Earth; if one had been a cataclysmic collision, it may have induced an extinction-level occasion. Simply have a look at what occurred to the dinosaurs.
Perhaps Jupiter assisted us in our existence, however the planet itself is awfully inhospitable to life – at the least, life as we all know it.
The identical isn’t the case with a Jupiter moon, Europa, maybe our greatest probability to seek out life elsewhere within the photo voltaic system.
NASA’s Europa Clipper, a robotic probe launching in October 2024, is scheduled to do about 50 fly-bys over that moon to research its monumental underground ocean.
Might one thing be residing in Europa’s water? Scientists received’t know for some time. Due to Jupiter’s distance from Earth, the probe received’t arrive till April 2030.
Benjamin Roulston is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Clarkson College. This text is republished from The Dialog below a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
