Little Red Spot
- Thread starter epicstruggle
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Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
it's supposedly a hurricane. the big one is too.
the little one's winds are around 400 MPH currently.
i assume they 'orbit' around the same latitude as opposed to staying in the same spot too.
hmm. be interesting to see the effect on terrain that has over the centuries. smooth as glass?
be an interesting area for a computer game to include. creating a Jupitor like planet to 'play' on. gravity, those storms, the effects of the huge moons.
the little one's winds are around 400 MPH currently.
i assume they 'orbit' around the same latitude as opposed to staying in the same spot too.
hmm. be interesting to see the effect on terrain that has over the centuries. smooth as glass?
be an interesting area for a computer game to include. creating a Jupitor like planet to 'play' on. gravity, those storms, the effects of the huge moons.
Jupiter doesn't have terrain per se, afaik it's all gas and liquid apart from a (possibly liquid, due to the planet being a brown star) iron core. In any case, I doubt either storm would reach all the way down to the core; they should only exist in the upper atmosphere layers...
There's nothing little about anything on Jupiter 
The current thinking is that the core of Jupiter is comprised of metallic hydrogen, not iron.
The current thinking is that the core of Jupiter is comprised of metallic hydrogen, not iron.
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
oh yeah, i forgot they called it a 'gas giant'. guess that doesn't mean full of gas, or gassy. are they sure about that? gas all the way to a core? how would the determine something like that?
Metallic hydrogen? Im going to have to wiki that one. Also why wouldnt the winds reach all the way down to the surface? Any guesses how thich the atmosphere is?
More questions:
-are there any plans currently to send probes into jupiter?
-any probes return data from inside jupiters atmosphere?
Anyone mind taking a stab at some of these questions? thanks.
epic
Interesting! Thanks... That would make sense I guess, isn't the general view that heavier matter would be concentrated towards the center of the solar system, while the outermost parts would end up with the lighter stuff?
What properties would metallic hydrogen have btw? I guess it would be highly reactive since it's in the leftmost column of the periodic table, but if that would be true of hydrogen also... Maybe it doesn't ionize that easily, I dunno, it was so damn long since I studied chemistry in school.
There isn't really a surface as such. More than 90% of the volume is definitely gas, and beneath all that is a liquid of compressed gas. And beneath that is a tiny solid core.
Plans? Yes. But nothing substantial, AFAIK.
Not yet, but there are plans.
It's a highly reactive metal, that is superconducting. And it can even become quite hot, as long as the pressure is high enough. But most of that is theory. We have no actual experiments or measurements.What properties would metallic hydrogen have btw? I guess it would be highly reactive since it's in the leftmost column of the periodic table, but if that would be true of hydrogen also... Maybe it doesn't ionize that easily, I dunno, it was so damn long since I studied chemistry in school.
What would it take to bring hydrogen into metallic form? Pressure greater than that at the bottom of an oceanic trench? Maybe several times greater?
arjan de lumens
Veteran
As I understand it, even though Jupiter has a solid core, it does not have a meaningful surface per se; rather, as you get deeper, the substance of the planet gets more and more solid in a rather continuous manner. A (somewhat silly) analogy would be a glass rod that is heated at one end until it melts; in such a glass rod, there is no sharp border between the solid and the molten sections; similarly Jupiter has no sharp border between gas and liquid, or between liquid and solid.
According to the Wikipedia article on metallic hydrogen, there have been experiments here on Earth that have successfully produced it, but due to the pressure needed to maintain it (>1 million atmospheres), it's rather hard to work with. Apparently, however, it is very un-alkali-metal-like.
As for probes, the Galileo spacecraft did drop a probe into Jupiter in 1995, which did a fair bit of measurements.
According to the Wikipedia article on metallic hydrogen, there have been experiments here on Earth that have successfully produced it, but due to the pressure needed to maintain it (>1 million atmospheres), it's rather hard to work with. Apparently, however, it is very un-alkali-metal-like.
As for probes, the Galileo spacecraft did drop a probe into Jupiter in 1995, which did a fair bit of measurements.
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Oh, yes. Make that several orders of magnitude.
Cartoon Corpse
Veteran
is it possible though, that there is a layer of gas and a solid planetlike surface further down encompassing a mantle and core (earthlike). is mars like that (earthlike) too?
and the scientists are just wrong? or is this established fact regarding jupitor?
can they bounce radio waves or lasers off it and prove its just gas and a core like you say?
and the scientists are just wrong? or is this established fact regarding jupitor?
can they bounce radio waves or lasers off it and prove its just gas and a core like you say?
They pulled up its skirt and checked years ago.
Actually they did send multiple probes into it. They never survive to the center, usually get crushed by its gravity so theres only a few seconds of data sent before it goes squish. Radio waves is most likely.
If there is any life on Jupiter as we would recognise it, it would be floating around in the vast atmosphere. And considering the huge volume, that's actually quite probable. But nobody knows.
As Arjan said, we've only looked at the very surface so far, so it's anybodies guess what's beneath that shallow layer.
As Arjan said, we've only looked at the very surface so far, so it's anybodies guess what's beneath that shallow layer.
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How can they get crushed by gravity? Jupiter isn't a black hole!
(Actually, even black holes don't kill by crushing, but rather by stretching stuff out so it rips into atomic slices/pieces...)If we assume the probes get killed before they reach so deep down into the planet that heat kills it or interference prevents transmisisons from making it out, it would have to be pressure that caves it in. But why build a probe that's completely enclosed and then send it into an interstellar body known to feature immense pressure levels?
Drill some holes into the casing FFS so pressure can normalize! It's not as if the trip through space is going to clog it all up with dust unless it's hermetically sealed! One of my friends did work on metallic Hydrogen for his PhD. Its an amazing experiment, but 11 years into his PhD, and exhausted of setbacks I think he got a little tired of waiting for it to finalize and defended a draft/theory paper on it instead.
It is possibly the hardest experiment(s) to do from a technical and engineering standpoint in all of physics, despite the fact that a lot is known from a theoretical standpoint.
It is possibly the hardest experiment(s) to do from a technical and engineering standpoint in all of physics, despite the fact that a lot is known from a theoretical standpoint.