Could a Spaceship Ignite an Alien Atmosphere?

Our rockets use combustion for power. Some planets have atmospheres made of flammable stuff like hydrogen and methane. Learn why we probably wouldn't cause a planetary fire in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/rockets-accidentally-ignite-alien-world-atmosphere.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, the production of I Heart Radio.
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogelbam Here. Let's say that someday
in the distant future, explorers from Earth decide to visit Jupiter,
the largest planet in our Solar system, and probe its mysteries.
At the end of their nearly two year journey, they
reached the giant planet, so immense that more than one thousand,

(00:25):
three hundred earths would fit inside of it. As the
spacecraft descends, the astronauts marvel at Jupiter's sixty seven moons,
so many that astronomers haven't even named them all yet.
They gaze and wonder at the planet's great Red Spot,
an immense perpetual hurricane like storm, and ponder the planet's
shroud of brown, yellow, red, and white clouds. But when

(00:49):
our fictional adventurers deploy the spacecraft's rocket thrusters to slow
their descent, something awful happens. The heat and flames from
the nozzles come into contact with the jovial an atmosphere,
which is hydrogen, and ignite it. Quickly, the Jupiter sky
turns into a fiery inferno. The astronauts realized that they've

(01:10):
got to get out of there quick. They just accidentally
ignited an entire planet's atmosphere. It might make for a
great premise for a science fiction thriller. In fact, the
idea made its way into an episode of the show
Star Trek Enterprise, but fortunately it's not something that will
ever happen in real life. Probably Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune,

(01:34):
the three immense gas giants in the Outer Solar System,
all have atmospheres made up of mostly hydrogen. That's a
chemical that one is in its gas form on Earth
can be explosively combustible. It's also the chemical that the
Sun uses for fuel. If you need an example of
hydrogen's flammability, consider the seven destruction of the Hindenburg airship,

(01:57):
which suddenly turned into an inferno as attempted to dock,
killing thirty seven people. Though the exact circumstances of the
disaster remain murky, the leading hypothesis is that a leaky
valve or broken wire caused hydrogen to leak into the
ship's ventilation shafts, where it was then ignited by static
electricity from a storm that the airship had flown through,

(02:19):
combined with an incendiary group of compounds that had been
used to make the skin of the Zeppelin air tight.
Hydrogen explosion like that of the Hindenburg could occur on Earth,
but not on one of the outer planets. For the
article this episode is based on How Stuff Works spoke
by email with Drake Demming, an astrology professor at the

(02:40):
University of Maryland who studied planetary atmospheres as a scientist
for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He said, the kind
of ignition you're talking about is rapid oxidation, and there
isn't enough free oxygen in the atmospheres of the outer
planets to allow that to happen. How Stuff Works also
spoke by email with Mark ray In, chief engineer and

(03:01):
mission director of NASA's Dawn Mission. He said oxygen is
the key. Combustion occurs when fuel combines with oxygen in
a chemical reaction that releases heat. A Jupiter and Saturn
have plenty of chemical fuel, as does Saturn's moon Titan,
which has methane in its atmosphere, but without oxygen, they

(03:22):
won't burn, and conversely, Earth's skies are similarly unlikely to
burn because while there's plenty of oxygen, the nitrogen that
makes up most of Earth's atmosphere isn't a very good fuel.
If it were possible to ignite the atmosphere of Jupiter,
it most likely would have happened by now, since the
planet has been hit many times by objects much bigger

(03:44):
and more energetic than a spaceship. As astronomer Phil Plate
has noted, the planet gets hit with something that's big
enough to see from Earth about once each year. The
most famous example is the collision between Jupiter and the
comet shoemaker Levy nine, which was oken by the planet's
intense gravity into a dozen separate hot pieces that exploded

(04:04):
with a huge release of energy. But those explosions didn't
cause Jupiter's atmosphere to ignite. Demming said, if an object
collides with Jupiter or Saturn, it will create high temperature
chemical reactions and localized pressure and heating. But the over
pressure from such an event would propagate as a shock wave,

(04:24):
expanding and cooling. So if the atmosphere is stable before
the collision, it isn't likely to become unstable afterwards. Okay,
but what would it take to cause Jupiter's atmosphere to explode?
Raymond said, Igniting an atmosphere would require providing it with
an extraordinary amount of whichever ingredient it lacks, either fuel

(04:47):
or oxygen. Given how large planets are, the addition of
a supply from something as small as a typical or
even large comet or asteroid would be such a tiny
fraction of the total atmosphere that it would be quite insufficient,
Like trying to fan a huge bonfire with a single
gentle puff. There might be some localized combustion, but it

(05:09):
would quickly burn out, just as the fire from the
hydrogen in the Hindenburg Zeppelin did. Basically, it would require
half as much oxygen as there is hydrogen in Jupiter's atmosphere.
It's not likely that anybody is going to be able
to transport that much oxygen there to start the fire.
Could something like this happen somewhere that we haven't discovered yet.

(05:31):
The universe is full of possibilities, but it looks as though,
at least for now, a sci fi screenwriters will have
to come up with a more plausible storyline. Today's episode
is based on the article could our spacecraft accidentally ignite
an alien world's entire atmosphere? On how Stuffworks dot Com.

(05:52):
Written by Patrick Jake tiger A. Brain Stuff is production
by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com
and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcast asks
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(06:16):
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