Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Black spot on Jupiter from a nuclear explosion?

re: I don't believe this, but it makes good science fiction (which I like alot)
Success_Machine — (archived)

The radiothermal generator contains about 2/3-pound of a very heavy element. If this heavy, armor-piercing bullet of radiactive slag remained intact through the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, then it might sink deep enough and puncture a high-pressure zone in the depths of the planet's core. The roiling currents shed by the hard, heavy stone as it sunk deeper would cross boundary layers, offering a low-pressure conduit for hot high-pressure gas to escape -- no -- explode upwards. Like a tear in a balloon the rip would propagate at an unimaginable rate across the boundary layer, opening it up, superheated gas hemorrhaging upwards, backwards along the travelled path of the sunken Galileo wreckage. Rending asunder the smooth predictable flows that kept the hot gases imprisoned for millennia, blackened heavier materials from the planet's core would mushroom upwards to the highest reaches of the Jovian stratosphere, showing an inkblot visible for tens of millions of kilometers away......

(howz that? not exactly a novel I know)

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (57 posts)