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Why does Jupiter look like it has a surface – even if it is not? – Sejal, 7 years old, Bangalore, India
There is no solid ground on Jupiter’s planet – no surface, such as grass or dirt you avoid here on Earth. There is nothing to walk and there is no place to land for a spaceship.
But how can it be? If Jupiter has no surface, what does he have? How can he keep together?
Even as a professor of physics studying various unusual phenomena, I understand that the concept of a world without a surface is difficult to understand. Still, much about Jupiter remains a mystery, even when the NASA robot probe Juno begins its ninth year with this strange planet.
First, some facts
Jupiter, the fifth planet of the Sun, is between Mars and Saturn. It is the largest planet of the solar system, large enough to fit more than 1000 land inside, with a room.
Although the four inner planets of the solar system – mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – are all made of solid, stony material, Jupiter is a gas giant whose composition is similar to the sun; It is a binding, stormy, extraordinarily restless gas ball. Some areas of Jupiter have more than 400 miles per hour (about 640 kilometers per hour), about three times faster than Category 5 Hurricane on Earth.
Search of hard land
Start with the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, landing about 60 miles (about 100 kilometers), and the air pressure is constantly increasing. Eventually you hit the ground – dryness or water.
Compare this to Jupiter: Start with it mostly the top of the hydrogen and helium atmosphere and, as in the ground, the pressure increases deeper. However, for Jupiter, the pressure is huge.
As the gas layers above you push down more and more, it is like being at the bottom of the ocean – but instead of water you are surrounded by gas. The pressure becomes so intense that the human body takes; You would be crushed.
Go down 1000 miles (1,600 kilometers), and hot, dense gas begins to behave strangely. After all, the gas turns into a form of liquid hydrogen, creating what can be considered the largest ocean in the solar system, albeit ocean without water.
Go down another 20,000 miles (about 32,000 kilometers), and the hydrogen becomes more like running liquid metal – material, such exotic material that it was only recently and with great difficulties scientists reproduced it in the laboratory. The atoms of this liquid metal hydrogen are so firmly compressed that its electrons can wander freely.
Remember that these layer transitions are gradual, not sudden; The transition from normal hydrogen gas to liquid hydrogen and then into the metal hydrogen is slow and smooth. By no means there is a sharp boundary, solid material or surface.
Scary core
In the end, you would reach the core of Jupiter. It is the central region of Jupiter’s interior and does not need to be confused with the surface.
Scientists are still discussing the exact nature of the nucleus material. The most favorable model: it is not cool, like a rock, but more like a hot, dense and possibly metal liquid and solid mixture.
The pressure at the Jupiter core is so enormous that it would be like a 100 million Earth atmosphere that has pressed you – or two Empire State buildings on the top of each square inch of the body.
But pressure would not be your only problem. The spacecraft trying to reach the core of Jupiter would dissolve extreme heat – 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit (20,000 degrees Celsius). It is three times hotter than the sun’s surface.
Jupiter helps the earth
Jupiter is a strange and prohibited place. But if Jupiter was not around, it may be that people may not be.
This is because Jupiter acts as a panel of the inner planets of the solar system, including the Earth. Due to the enormous attraction of gravity, Jupiter has replaced the orbit of asteroids and comes for billions of years.
In addition to the intervention of Jupiter, some of those space debris may have crashed into the ground; If anything had been a cataclysmal collision, it could have caused an event of extinction. Just see what happened to the dinosaurs.
Perhaps Jupiter helped our existence, but the planet itself is extremely rude to life – at least life as we know it.
Same with Jupiter Moon, Europe, perhaps the best opportunity to find life in another solar system.
NASA’s Europa Clipper, a robot probe, started in 2024. October, it is planned that about 50 flying methods will be made above that moon to explore its giant underground ocean.
Can someone live in European water? Scientists will not know for a while. Due to Jupiter’s distance from the Earth, the probe will arrive until 2030. April
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This article has been published from a conversation, non -profit, independent news organizations that provide you with facts and reliable analysis to help you give meaning to our complex world. It was written by: Benjamin Roulston, Clarkson University
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Benjamin Roulston is not working, consulting, having any company or organization funds, or receiving funding that benefits from this article, and has not disclosed any important dependent on their academic appointment.