How To make Jupiter into a Star/What would happen to earth

[THEHOOLIGANJEDI]

This is just a question I've been thinking of for some time. How would you go about trying to cause a fusion reaction in Jupiter that could make it a star?? Would you just throw in a bunch of high Yield (50 megaton) H-Bombs? And How would that effect the Earth? There of course would be a general increase in temperature, but would this new star be that hot?

[Queeb Salaron]

This is just a question I've been thinking of for some time. How would you go about trying to cause a fusion reaction in Jupiter that could make it a star?? Would you just throw in a bunch of high Yield (50 megaton) H-Bombs? And How would that effect the Earth? There of course would be a general increase in temperature, but would this new star be that hot?

The gasses on Jupiter are inflamable. So what you do is this: You get a space ship and a Zippo, and...

...what?!...

[jegs2]

This is just a question I've been thinking of for some time. How would you go about trying to cause a fusion reaction in Jupiter that could make it a star?? Would you just throw in a bunch of high Yield (50 megaton) H-Bombs? And How would that effect the Earth? There of course would be a general increase in temperature, but would this new star be that hot?

The gasses on Jupiter are inflamable. So what you do is this: You get a space ship and a Zippo, and...

...what?!...

But hey, it briefed well...

[Kuroneko]

Jupiter's mass is about two orders of magnitude too small to become a star, and one order of magnitude from even the faintest of brown dwarfs. Even if you ignite some of the hydrogen on the surface with H-bombs, it'll burn out very quickly.

[Darth Wong]

Ignition conditions do not exist in Jupiter. Even if you detonated H-bombs, the only fusion would be in the bombs themselves. If they used ordinary hydrogen in thermonuclear weapons, they would be much less effective.

[Captain Jack]

This is just a question I've been thinking of for some time. How would you go about trying to cause a fusion reaction in Jupiter that could make it a star?? Would you just throw in a bunch of high Yield (50 megaton) H-Bombs? And How would that effect the Earth? There of course would be a general increase in temperature, but would this new star be that hot?

The gasses on Jupiter are inflamable. So what you do is this: You get a space ship and a Zippo, and...

...what?!...

You would also need to add some good old O2 for that to work.
Lots and lots of O2

[Darth Servo]

Let me guess. You watched '2010' this past weekend?

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I believe Jupiter didn't become a star because it was too light, and there wasn't enough pressure in the core.

Assuming we could do the impossible and add some mass and pressure and ignite a star, what would happen to earth?

[Captain Jack]

Adding mass to Jupiter could skrew with the earths orbit, I think. and it would fuck the astroids over badly. The radiation would be a lesser problem. It all depends on the size and mass of the new star.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Of course there is the old drop-a-small-black-hole-into-Jupiter trick, but that has OBVIOUSLY serious problems! Yipe!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

This is just a question I've been thinking of for some time. How would you go about trying to cause a fusion reaction in Jupiter that could make it a star?? Would you just throw in a bunch of high Yield (50 megaton) H-Bombs? And How would that effect the Earth? There of course would be a general increase in temperature, but would this new star be that hot?

Increase the mass of Jupiter by more than eighty times and voila, instant M9 red dwarf. That's the only way you could do it. Any less massive than that, and the fusion reaction will stop itself.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I believe Jupiter didn't become a star because it was too light, and there wasn't enough pressure in the core.

Assuming we could do the impossible and add some mass and pressure and ignite a star, what would happen to earth?

Well, if we kick Jupiter up to the minimum required for sustained nuclear fusion, then we have a star with perhaps ten percent of the Sun's mass. (Jupiter currently is about 0.1 percent of the Sun's mass.) This would mean that the gravitational pull of Jupiter becomes a hundred times greater. However, when one does some BOTE calculations, one quickly finds that the gravitational force exerted by the new star is only slightly greater than that exerted by the Moon. So the gravitational effects on Earth would be insignificant.

Such a star would have a luminosity of around 34/1000000th of the Sun's. And at the distance between Earth and the new star, the heating effects would be nonexistent. It would be a tremendously bright star though, although a full Moon would outshine it by 20000x, even at it's closest approach.

The only thing we Earth people would have to worry about is what this new massive object in the solar system would do to the asteroids in the asteroid belt, some of which are much closer to Jupiter than they are to Earth. Most of them will be ejected from the solar system outright, though some will be nudged into Earth-crossing orbits. And some of these objects would end up hitting the Earth.

[Cthulhu-chan]

So, the moral of the story is to let sleeping (gas) giants lie?

[Xenophobe3691]

So, the moral of the story is to let sleeping (gas) giants lie?

If you're gonna build something, build it right.

[SAMAS]

On a similar note, what if you compressed it into a structure about a third the size of the Moon?

[NecronLord]

http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/1742482.jpg

IIRC the way the monoliths in 2010 did it was by replicating themselves, converting everything in the atmosphere to hydrogen and generating a compression field around the planet to induce fusion.

[Kuroneko]

IIRC the way the monoliths in 2010 did it was by... generating a compression field around the planet to induce fusion.

Which is basically invoking Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

[NecronLord]

IIRC the way the monoliths in 2010 did it was by... generating a compression field around the planet to induce fusion.

Which is basically invoking Clarke's Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

If he isn't entitled to use it, who is?

[Kuroneko]

If he isn't entitled to use it, who is?

Heh. Indeed. I did not mean that as an objection to usage in sci-fi, just that we cannot count on it if we want Jupiter to become a star.

[Alnilam]

In order to make Jupiter a star,we would have to add it at least 79 times its mass
(we will "convert" it into one of the less massive stars and not into a Sol-like one).
I'm not sure of the effects of the orbits,but at least the closest objects to it -the asteroid belts,
Saturn,and maybe Mars-,would have their orbits quite changed (wild speculation!)
I think the unique effect our planet would suffer would be a new truly red star in the sky that
would shine roughly like the full Moon that even during the day could be seen and that would
ruin astronomers (no doubt;compare a dark starry sky with no Moon and with one during full MOON)

Bye!

[Kuroneko]

I think the unique effect our planet would suffer would be a new truly red star in the sky that would shine roughly like the full Moon...

Oh, much worse! Jupiter has about 9.5450e-4 solar masses, so if the mass was increased 83.8 times, the apparent luminosity at 1AU would be 2.770e-7 that of the Sun [1]. Jupiter's distance from Earth varies between 3.934e-3 and 6.471e-3 AU [2], so the apparent luminosity should be between 2.770e-7/(3.934e-3)^2 = 1.790e-2 and 6.615e-3 times that of the Sun, which is between 3,000 and 8,000 times that of the Moon [3]! (With a mass increase factor of 75.4 instead of 83.8, the luminosity will be 1/66th of that, but that's still up to 120 times more luminous than the Moon).

[Alnilam]

Assuming Jupiter had the brigthness you add (2.77*10e-7 Sun),at the distance of the Sun (I AU) it only would have 0.12 times the luminosity of the full Moon.It we saw it from Earth when both planets are closer (distance between both:roughly 4 AU),it would be 125 times less brighter than the full Moon,or in other words it would be fifteen times brighter than Venus.It would be a quite beautiful spectacle on the sky that surely astronomers would like to blow apart

Now,let us speculate instead of that puny red dwarf we had a Sun-like star in the place of Jupiter.The new center of masses of the solar system would be at 2.6 AU of the Sun and at the same distance of our new star (in other words,in the asteroid belt).Mercury,Venus,the Earth,and perhaps Mars,would be too close to the Sun to be affected by the new star's gravity.The orbits of the asteroids and Saturn would be severely affected and perhaps would be kicked out of the "double solar" system.However,Uranus and everything beyond would not be so affected and could get a new orbit around the new center of masses (try to imagine how so complicate would be the orbit of a comet around the two suns).
We would see a new star in the sky as a small,barely noticeable disk but very bright;roughly 25000 times brighter than the full moon -1/18 times the luminosity of the sun from Earth-.Our climate would be affected by the heat apported by the new star and there would be only dark nights when Jupiter was very near of the Sun.
Honestly,I believe the Solar system it's better how it's now

This may have been quite largue,but it's fun to especulate.
Regards.

[Kuroneko]

Egads, you're right! I've commited one of the most moronic mistakes possible, namely failing convert meters to kilometers properly (my AU value was off by a factor of 1000).