On Jan 24, 2005, at 2:27 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
It's a good thing I neglected to point out that Jupiter is the home of
big government, really big government.
True, but ours is still more dense.
As to whether you could really get fusion going on Jupiter -- IIRC it's actually radiating more energy than falls into it from sunlight, etc., so it's already a fairly hot body. But I think it was Beta Pictoris that has a gas giant orbiting it 10 times larger than Jupiter and it hasn't begun fusing.
As to the feasibility of Jupiter itself fusing, not without a lot more mass. You'd need almost 10% of a solar mass of hydrogen to begin fusing (> 0.08), and Jupiter's mass is nowhere near that (0.001).
(Source on solar masses for fusion)
<http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/astr_250/Lectures/Lecture_20.htm>
(Source on Jovian mass relative to solar mass -- discussion of Jovian fusion can be found on this page as well.)
<http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/4515/SolarSystem/ Jupiter.html>
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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