May 21, 2020 • 37 mins
What is the fate of the largest planet in our solar system?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Daniel, do you ever think about what the night
sky looked like to our ancestors? I do. I wonder
how it looked at them. And I also like thinking
even further back in the past, like what did the
dinosaurs see in the sky? Yeah, they probably should have
looked at this guy more carefully, you know, looking for
meteors for example. I know dinosaur astronomers totally fell down
on the job, but you can even think further back,
(00:30):
like the first eyeballs on Earth five million years ago,
you mean, like microbe astronomers, or you know, I think
to the future. I wonder what the night sky will
look like to humans billions of years from It could
be totally different. I mean, if there even our humans
then yeah. Well I'm thinking about the future cockroach astronomers
and hoping they will keep an eye on the stars
(00:52):
for us. Whatever they see doesn't bug them. I am
(01:12):
more hamming cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. I'm Daniel.
I'm a particle physicist. And that was the first time
I ever said cockroach on the podcast and astronomers in
the same sentence Publicly. I love astronomers, I love astronomy.
I'm nothing but pro astronomers. I did like the idea
of dinosaur astronomers. That's pretty cool. My favorite story about
(01:34):
dinosaur astronomers is that they really did have a chance
to save themselves. Your favorite I feel like you thought
about this before. Well, yeah, absolutely. You know that the
meteor that came and wiped out the dinosaurs made a
near past by the Earth ten years earlier, Yeah, and
came close enough that they should have been able to
look up and see it in the sky. So if
(01:55):
they had funded their version of NASA, they could have
saved their own lives ten years. Do you think dinosaurs
could have built spaceships? And necessity is the mother of invention, right,
do you think they should have called the dinosaur Bruce
Willis put them on a spaceship and getting to deflect
that asteroid in ten years? Well, you know the other
option is what happened, So anything is better than that.
But anyways, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge talk
(02:17):
about dinosaur astronomers. That's all we do. Daniel and Jorge
digress in the very first moments of the podcast. That's
right now. Welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explained
the universe a production of I Heart Radio in which
we talk about all the amazing and beautiful and crazy
things about the universe, the violent events, the incredible drama
happening in the inside of stars, the tiny little particles
(02:39):
that apparently make up everything you see and touch and taste. Yeah,
all of the spacey stuff out there, happening in the
universe and even in our own backyards, or I guess
our solar system backyard. That's right, because when you look
out into the night sky, you are not seeing a
still picture. You are not seeing a flat image. You
are seeing a drama unfolding on cosmic distance sales and
(03:00):
time scales. If you were to look at the night
sky sped up a little bit, you would see incredible events,
huge explosions, massive collisions. It would put Hollywood to shame.
It's like a cosmological telenovella, a lot of twists and turns.
I don't know if anybody's really like backstabbing anybody, or
does the Earth have an evil twin on the other
side of the Sun Planet X Extreme close up. I
(03:24):
don't know if there's so much political intrigue, but there
is definitely drama. There are things that happened rapidly, all
of a sudden. There are sudden changes of fate. There
are things that are happening, and so I think it's
fun to think about how our solar system will evolve. Yeah,
because as we as humans found out about a hundred
years ago, the universe is not static. Things are changing.
(03:45):
The stars are moving, the galaxies are blazing across the universe,
and new stars are being born all the time. That's right.
And stars can change right there, formed from the collapse
of gases into a hot dense object that confuse eventually
to and into something else like a black hole or
a white dwarf. They go through this evolution, and so
it's natural to also wonder, like what about planets? Do
(04:08):
planets have future stages in their evolution? Are they like Pokemon?
They can evolve into different versions. They say that Earth
is only stage one. I don't know enough about Pokemon
to even really make that joke. I just watched my
kids play, so I can say energy cards and pokemons evolved.
Then we're at the end of my knowledge. I think
our planet is Earth type. Is it an e X
(04:29):
or a g X? Does it have the shiny glint
on it? It used to. I think that's right. And
we did a podcast recently in which we talked about
Jupiter and how close Jupiter was to having become a star,
and a bunch of listeners wrote in asking us about that.
Jim Sanchez, Doug Dodds, and Ryan Kyrkiss all wrote and
(04:49):
asked us like, well, is Jupiter on the verge of
becoming a star? Could it one day eventually become a star?
Because I guess it's kind of a fine line between
the being a giant cloud of dust and being a
giant gas planet and maybe being a giant ball of
flaming gas like the Sun. It's kind of a fine line.
It turns out. How final line is it either on
(05:11):
fire or you're not? That seems pretty clear cut to me. Well,
I mean what does it take, like a match or
you know, a spark. I guess that's the question we'll
be talking about today. That's right. So to the other program,
we'll be asking the question could Jupiter become a star?
(05:32):
Is it too late for Jupiter or can it still
you know, find the right role and suddenly be the
new darling of Hollywood. Hey, you know, jump on the
TikTok and anybody can become a star. Oh hey, that's
what Jupiter needs. That's right. But there was some actual
serious talk about this. A couple of decades ago. NASA
sent a probe out to study Jupiter, and they didn't
want the probe to infect any of Jupiter's moons where
(05:55):
we think there might potentially be life, right, my crobial life.
And we didn't want to cray Galileo this probe onto
any of Jupiter's moons because we didn't want to bring
any earth microbes. Right, once you bring Earth's microbes, you
can no longer ask like are their native microbes? And
so instead they crashed the probe into Jupiter itself because
we don't care about infect the Jupiter. I think the
(06:17):
idea was that it would burn up and get crushed
because Jupiter has this incredible atmosphere, so we get immolated
in descent, whereas the moons don't have those atmospheres, and
so it would actually land on the surface and potentially survive.
But there was some concern about that. Yeah, people were wondering, like,
if Jupiter is on the verge of becoming a star,
if it's this huge ball of gas and you drop
(06:39):
a match into it essentially, is there impossibility that it
could have ignited the atmosphere or Jupiter and birth a
new star, because I mean Jupiter. If you think about it,
it's a giant ball of hydrogen, right, kind of like
the Hindenberg. Kind of like the Hindenburg, but much bigger.
That's what I mean. It's like the big balloon made
out of hydrogen and all you need is a little
(07:00):
flame and some oxygen. All of a sudden, it sounds
very unstable, does it sounds like a nine twenties idea? Yeah?
And you know this actually appears in science fiction as well,
in the well known series two thousand and one, two
thousand ten, etcetera. They turn Jupiter into a star on purpose. Yeah,
on purpose, I guess. You know. The aliens. We didn't
(07:21):
really ever understand their psychology, but they turn it into
a new star. They call it Lucifer. The Aliens call
it Lucifer. I don't remember the details that book. Who
calls it Lucifer, Whether it's the aliens naming it or
you know, earthbound cartoonists who are elected to a naming
committee who gave it that name. But I do remember
the sequel to two thousand and one two thousand and ten.
(07:41):
I think that that the end, Jupiter does become a star.
Sorry spoiler um, because the star at the end of
that movie. And I was wondered, like, oh, that's pretty interesting,
but what does that mean? Is that going to change
our solar system or what's the big deal? Yeah? Exactly,
So it's an interesting question. It's right here in our backyard.
It seems relevant. So we thought we would try to
(08:03):
figure out how close is Jupiter to becoming a star?
If you wanted to turn it into a star, what
would you have to do? So, as usual, Daniel went
out there into the wilds of the Internet and ask
people to submit their answer to the question could Jupiter
become a star? That's right, So thank you to everybody
who participated, And if you'd like to participate in future
(08:23):
rounds of person on the Internet interviews, please send us
a note to questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
We'd love for you to answer our questions. And before
you listen to these answers, think about it for a second.
Do you think Jupiter could become a star. Here's what
people had to say. I think anyone who claims to
know where the Jupiter can turn into a star. Absolutely
(08:45):
is probably exaggerating their knowledge in order to make up
one last say. I think Jupiter is like a filed
star because it's not massive enough to have the fusion
reactions at the cool The only way I can think
of that it could become a star would be if
it pulled in enough matter. Well it didn't for our reason,
(09:08):
I suppose not enough mass um. I didn't hear that
almost became a star. Well, well maybe it's if a
lot of planets I think the universe is are unlikely
to happen, But it happened, So perhaps it's just as
(09:31):
unlikely that Tupiter would turn into a star. But I
suppose it could happen. Yeah, what kind of what kind
of start? Jupiter is a gas giant and it's made
of gas, and stars are also made of gas. So
I think maybe if a small star came into it.
(09:52):
I suppose if it became big enough and had enough gravity,
it could turn on and become a star. But I'm
not aware that it's so it's growing. My short answer
is I don't think so. Yes, I think that it's
eight times more massive that it would need to become
in order for Jupiter to start burning hydrogen and fusing
(10:14):
it into helium. But even if you were to combine
all the planets in the Solar System, you wouldn't get
to the mass needed. So by natural means, no, it's
not possible. But theoretically could Jupiter become a star? Then yes,
you just need to add eight more jupiters to it.
(10:36):
If Jupiter's ape does extremely well, I think Jupiter might
be able to become a starmp if anyone could be
a start with. Oh my gosh. I believe that the
gas giants have cleaned up our Solar system enough that
it is unlikely that Jupiter would be able to get
enough mass to turn into a star. Well, theoretically possible
(10:59):
in time. I think the way that it might happen
is maybe if there are a rogue planet that collided
with Jupiter or sufficient other material like comets and asteroids
and so on, But that seems implosible. Alright. Some great
answers I like the one that said yes, I mean no, wait,
(11:21):
what's the star? If you're not going to be accurate,
you should at least be well. I guess that perfectly
reflects how I feel. I'm like, yes, no, wait, let's
define a star. Yeah. I think it is an interesting
question because you know, different stuff out there have evolutions,
you know, we see stuff changing in the universe, and
we haven't ever talked about the question of like, is
(11:43):
a planet stable? Could a planet just hang out forever
or does it have the next natural stage in its evolution? Yeah?
Is this possible that we suddenly have two stars in
our sky? You know, kind of like star wars? Yeah?
What would that mean for when you have to go
to work and abaly make our days longer? Yeah, it
would make our days longer and much more irregular. Right,
(12:04):
you wouldn't have regular patterns. You have times when both
stars were in the sky and times when only one
of them was in the sky. Have you ever read
the three body problem? You know, the calendar on that
planet is very complicated. All right, let's jump into it, Daniel.
What makes something a star versus a planet? I guess
let's start with that question. What happens at that fourth
in the road for a big ball of gas where
it turns into a jupiter, or it turns into a star,
(12:27):
and or can it kind of switch over? Yeah? So
really it's all about mass, Like if you are a
big enough blob of stuff, then gravity will pull you
in and compress you hard enough that you will start
to fuse. You'll create the conditions necessary to squish these
particles together so they fuse, which releases a huge amount
(12:48):
of energy. And that's really the distinction between a planet
and a star. A star is using, it's releasing energy,
it's burning itself, and a planet is much more inert
than no fusion happening at the center of the Earth
or at the center of Jupiter, for example, And that's
just because we don't have enough stuff, Like if we
had more stuff, it would be heavier, and things get
more compressing you sort of get to that pressure where
(13:09):
fusion happens. That's right. It's all about the stuff, and
it depends on which kind of stuff. Like if you're
just hydrogen, just gas, then you need less stuff. Then
if you're like a huge ball of oxygen or carbon,
because the heavier elements take higher pressure or higher temperature
conditions in order to fuse, So hydrogen is the easiest.
So if you're gonna go all hydrogen, you need a
(13:30):
big ball of gas. If you're gonna go all carbon
or all oxygen or something heavier, you need a bigger bone.
But in principle, if you took the Earth and made
it much more massive, same stuff, same mixture of stuff,
it would turn into a star. Wow, how much more stuff?
I guess? I guess The question is what does it
take to be a star? How much stuff do you need?
And we can think about it in terms of like
(13:50):
pounds or kilograms or squirrels, but those units are hard
to grasp because the numbers are so big. Let's just
talk about in terms of stuff. So let's talk about
in terms of units of like one sun. So the
minimum amount of stuff you need to reach any sort
of fusion is about one one of the mass of
the sun of our son, of our son. Yeah, we're
(14:11):
using our suns as a unit. You could have something
one one of our sun and it could be a star.
That's right, And that's only like really special. That's the
absolute minimum. It gets you above the shelf for the lowest, weakest,
lamest kind of fusion. And if you reach that threshold,
you're called a brown dwarf. And it's a special kind
of fusion. It's not just hydrogen fusion. It's deuterium fusion
(14:35):
and deuterium, if you remember, is an isotope of hydrogen,
and the nucleus you have a proton and a neutron,
not just a proton, and that neutron is crucial because
it helps sort of bring those protons together and stick
them together. I see, um, that sounds small, like one
hundreds the size of the Sun. But that's it like
what like ten earth? That's yes, something like ten thou earths.
(14:56):
It's a lot bigger than the Earth, and so it's
not that small, all right. I mean, it's small compared
to our Sun, but it's a big object. And they're
called brown dwarfs, but they're pretty badly named because they're
not actually brown. They're not actually dwarves if they're ten
thousand earths. Also, so two strikes there for the physics
community in one name their dwarfs compared to the other stars.
(15:19):
But they don't look at all brown. They look magenta
or like orange red. And that's just because the kind
of fusion that happens in the kind of light that
they admit I see. But they're still sort of big
balls of fiery stuff. They just they don't glows brightly
and they're kind of tinged in a certain color, and
these things exist and they're not that rare in the universe.
Is one like six and a half light years away
(15:40):
from us. It's called Luman sixteen. And so they're not
that easy to see because they're not that bright. But
you know, theoretically we understand that they should exist and
we see them out there, and so this is totally
a possibility. It's the minimum threshold to become a star.
And then those are the smallest stars. So then what's
the next step up? Next step up is you know,
really you might call the first kind of real star,
(16:02):
and this is a red dwarf, a brown dwarf. People argue, like,
you know, is it a big, hot burning planet. Is
a star that's you know, it's kind of lame, but
a red dwarf nobody argues about, Like, it's definitely a star.
It burns hydrogen. Like essentially, this is the minimum star
you need if you just start from hydrogen. If you
have one tenth the mass of the Sun and a
(16:23):
huge ball of hydrogen gas, gravity will pull it together
and squeeze it hard enough for it to fuse fuse.
But in a brown star, there's no fusion. There is fusion,
but it's deterior and fusion. It's not hydrogen fusion. A
brown star is not hot enough to fuse hydrogen. You
need that extra neutron in the nucleus to make the
fusion happen, and so the fusion doesn't release as much
(16:43):
energy either. There's sort of like a cooler, weaker lam
or kind of fusion, but it's still fusion. It's just
kind of an easier fusion. It's easier and it's not
as dramatic. It doesn't produce as much energy. So that's
why the brown dwarfs aren't so luminous. All right. So
then when you get to one tenth of the mass
with the Sun, then you get the real cooking coin.
That's right, that's a legit star. It's a red dwarf,
(17:05):
and you know there's one that's only six years away.
It has a name that's all like letters and acronym,
so it's totally unpronounceable. But the cool thing about it
is that it's really dense, like it has one tenth
the mass of the Sun, but it's radius it's the
same as Saturn. Wow, So it's tiny, but it's it's compact.
It's a little dwarf. It's a little red dwarf. It's
(17:28):
perfectly named and is it red? So there you go
to check marks for the astronomy community terms. You're you're
up to zero then zero zero zero physicists, this is
zero public. But you know, something the size of a
planet can definitely be a star. That's not an issue.
(17:48):
It's not just about size, it's about mass. Remember, gravity
will gather this stuff together and make it really dense
for density. Yeah, all right, well it's clear that things
about the size of planets can become stars. And so
now let's talk about Jupiter and whether Jupiter could or
could have become a star. But first let's take a
quick break. All right, Daniel, we're talking about making a
(18:22):
star in our own backyard. So what do we need?
A grill, some matches, a lot of flower which is
on short supply. Oh no, better order a crate of it.
All right, So let's we're talking about whether Jupiter could
be one day become a star, which is a crazy idea.
But you're telling me that it's all about the stuff.
You have enough stuff and you're compressed enough, then almost
(18:44):
anything can become a star. Yeah, And so let's talk
about Jupiter. How how massive is Jupiter. Jupiter is about
one tenth of one of the mass of the Sun,
so one of the song Okay, so it's it's ten
times too small to be a brown Earth. Yeah, I
remember the threshold is one hundred of the Sun for
a brown dwarf, one tenth of the Sun for a
(19:05):
red dwarf. And so Jupiter it's ten times too small
to be a brown dwarf and a hundred times too
small to be a red dwarf. And it's made out
of roughly the right stuff. It's mostly hydrogen. It's just
not big enough icy and you need that stuff because
I mean, while you like, the Earth could become a
star if you compress it down enough, but there's nothing
(19:26):
really compressing the Earth that much except for its gravity,
and so without that stuff to create the gravity, you
can't turn into a star. Yeah, the Earth is like
one three hundred thousand's the size of the Sun, and
so we're nowhere near massive enough to ever become a star.
Jupiter is like it's in within shouting distance, you know,
like ten times too small to be a pathetic little
(19:47):
brown dwarf is like it's you know, ten times. It's
not a small thing to overcome, but it's still ten
times too small. Like that doesn't seem likely to happen
anytime soon. No, And Jupiter is already really big, right,
So it sends the In order for Jupiter become a star,
you have to multiply its mass by a factor of ten.
That means like gather nine more jubiters somewhere somehow and
(20:10):
added to junior. Al Right, well, it doesn't sound very
likely then that Jupiter is going to turn into star.
Why was NASA worried about it years ago? You know,
I think they just thought that crashing a probe into
it could spark a reaction. You know, the process we're
talking about, a sort of a natural gathering due to gravity.
You know, the Hindenburg went into flames without being the
(20:30):
mass of the Sun, and so people were just worried
that adding a spark to a ball of gas could
potentially ignite it. But I think that was a small
community of paranoid voices inside NASA, and most people weren't
too worried. But you know, if you know the story,
we were worried about igniting the atmosphere when we tested
the first atomic bomb in New Mexico. Really, yeah, that
was a possible concern. Yeah, before they tested it, they
(20:53):
did the calculations and they couldn't rule out igniting the atmosphere.
But you know, they went ahead and tried it. Anyway,
what's the worst that can happen? So it's not just
particle physicists that are potentially ending the world. Okay, oh good,
it's other kinds of physicists, that's right, and even ending
potentially other worlds. Yeah. So if you wanted to turn
(21:16):
Jupiter into a star, you'd have to somehow gather these materials. Yeah,
let's talk about that. If you're an alien in the
Arthursday Clark novel, how would you do it? Well, you know,
where can you get these materials? Like, what is the
source of raw materials you need to turn Jupiter into
a star. There's really the biggest things in the Solar
system are the Sun and Jupiter, and after that everything
else is a tiny detail. So the only place to
(21:39):
get this up is from the Sun. So you have
to basically steal from the Sun, siphon off a huge
amount of matter, and you know, feed that into Jupiter somehow. Really,
there's not enough gas floating around or asteroids floating around
to kind of feed Jupiter. There's only a tiny little
bit of gas and asteroids. Most of the stuff is
coalesced into the Sun and into Jupiter. And you know,
(22:00):
even Jupiter is like a tiny fracture. Remember it's one
one thousands of the mass of the Sun. So if
you like made a bar chart of all the stuff
in this solar system, it would basically just be the
Sun and then you know, a few crumbs. So Jupiter
is just like the biggest crumb, and after that there's
basically nothing of note. Al Right, So you would need
Jupiter to be ten times bigger, and so maybe let's
(22:22):
talk about how that would look like, Like, let's say
we increase the massive Jupiter by two how would it
look different. It wouldn't have enough energy to fuse, right,
and so it just looks like a bigger Jupiter. It
just you know, be bigger and fatter, and it would
have just as many crazy storms, but really no fundamental change.
It might emit more radiation because it would have more
(22:42):
activity in the interior do the increased pressure, Like the
surface would look sort of the same, would just be bigger.
It would just be bigger yeah, and the service would
look sort of the same. But we don't really understand jupiters,
like cloud patterns and what's going on there, the crazy vortices,
the red spot. That's the kind of thing we don't understand.
And if we preet Jupiter's mass, then all the features
(23:03):
that contribute to that craziness would be doubled, and so
we'd probably get it, as you know, twice as many
bands and much more craziness, and maybe the red spot
would be even more insane. Right, But there are a
lots of questions about these gas giants. Remember, Saturn has
a hexagon on his north pole that we don't understand either, Right.
We did a whole podcast about that mystery. It would
be a fascinating experiment to do to double the massive
(23:24):
Jupiter and just see what happens, Like, hey, turn that
knob and see how crazy these planets get. Yeah, let's
do it, Daniel, Okay, I'll write a proposal. What's the
worst that can happen? Well, what what would be happening
on the inside, Like I know that the inside of
Jupiter there's like what is it frozen hydrogen or something?
Metallic hydrogen? Metallic hydrogen yea oceans of liquid hydrogen is
(23:46):
all these layers of more and more compressed hydrogen, and
as you add more stuff to it than those layers
get denser and denser, right until at the very core
that's where the fusion would begin. When you get enough
match you sort of like gradually approved and you get
these layers and layers of more intensely squeezed hydrogen. Okay,
so then as I increased man, let's say I'm I'm
(24:07):
pouring more hydrogen into Jupiter. Now we're at like four
times the size of Jupiter right now or the mass?
Do things still change? Like, you know, does it suddenly
become more solid at the core or does it become
like a this nebulous ball of gas or does it
Would it look the same just bigger. It would look
the same, just bigger. I don't know that you would
see much different from the outside. Like again, we don't
(24:30):
understand the patterns on the surface, so it's hard to
predict what those would look like. But on the inside
you be getting new layers, you'd be getting the core
would be denser. Right as you add more mass, you're
creating new layers in the core that are denser and hotter,
and eventually you're gonna make the one that's going to fuse.
I wonder if it would grow another eye. Wouldn't that
(24:50):
be cool? Totally awesome. In fact, we wonder if that happened,
if it was typical or unusual. So really, we should
replicate this project. We should make like d you know,
double jupiters or ten quad jupiters, just to see if
it's a systematic or not. Wow. I mean, while we're
scooping matter out of the sun and playing god, let's
be systematic about it, all right. So now let's say
(25:13):
I keep going and I'm now I've pumped up Jupiter
up to one on the size of the mass of
the Sun, where it could become a brown dwarf. I
guess would it just automatically turn into a brown dwarf
or does it need like some kind of event to
trigger it, or does it happen slowly? Jupiter wouldn't actually
turn into a brown dwarf if you've got it to
one mass of the Sun, because that's a special kind
(25:35):
of process. It needs deuterium. And if we're just adding hydrogen,
remember which just protons and electrons that needs to get
to one tenth the mass of the Sun. Deuterium is
a special thing, and you need a proton and a
neutron and the electron around it, and the neutron helps
that fusion happen. You might think like, well, that's weird.
How's a neutron help fusion happen. It's neutral anyway, right,
(25:58):
Remember neutrons and these ound objects of quarks that have
the strong force. The neutron is what helps hold things together,
like in heavier elements. The neutron is the reason why
the element is stable. It keeps the protons separated, and
the little residual strong force from the quarks helps tie
everything together. So the neutrons are like the little helper
assistant particles making the fusion happen. The Brown Doors used
(26:22):
this special channel only available when you have deterior So
Jupiter isn't mostly deterium, it's mostly hydrogen. Oh man, alright,
So I did all this work. I inflated Jupiter to
ten times in size, and apparently nothing happens. Yeah, exactly.
So let's let's keep going. Let's keep pressing the accelerator
and see what happens to juventer. But first, let's take
(26:44):
a quick break, all right, Daniel. If I pop Jupiter
to one one hundreds the size of the Sun or
the mass of the Sun, nothing would happen. I would
(27:05):
need to take it to one tenth of the mass
of the Sun in order for Jupiter to be a star.
That's right, Make a blob of gas that's one tenth
the mass the Sun. Then gravity will coalesce it and
it will start to fuse, and it will start to glow,
and it will be a new star and you can
name it whatever you like. Well, now I feel all
(27:25):
this pressure to come up with a grid name. But
basically you need a hundred jupiters. You need Juiver to
be a hundred times bigger or more massive in order
for it to ever become a star. And even then
it would be a red dwarf, which is not like
the shiniest, prettiest kind of star. That's right. It would
be much smaller than our star and not as bright.
And would it ignite right away? Or is this like
(27:46):
like a slow burn where it slowly turns into a
red torch. Well, it depends on how dense it is
when you start, Like if you just start from a
big diffused cloud of gas the way our solar system started.
Then it's going to take a long time for gravity
to pull that together. There. If you start from a
place where it's already pretty dense, like about it Densis Jupiter,
then it's not going to take gravity that long because
(28:07):
everything is already pretty close together. But it'll start to
burn from the inside, right, and then that we'll have
to heat the next layers and the next layers and
the next layers, and so this isn't the kind of
thing that's going to happen, you know, in five seconds.
But it's also not going to take a billion years.
Oh I see. It's gonna start at the inside, and
then it's the heat the explosion of that. It's going
to gradually make it to the surface, and then that's
(28:30):
when you'll see its glow exactly. And it's just like
any other kind of fire, you know, the energy put
out by it sustains it, keeps that temperature hot, keeps
those fusion processes going. All right, Well, it sounds like
we're not likely to get a hundred jupiters all in
the same spot suddenly, although it's kind of cool to
(28:51):
think about, and so maybe um step aster, what is
the future of Jupiter. What's going to happen to it.
It's not going to become a star, but what is
it going to become? Yeah, and you know, even if
Jupiter did become a star, like if it turned on,
I just want to mention that it's not going to
be as bright as our sun. And it's much further
from us, right, Jupiter is much further from us than
(29:11):
the Sun is. So even if it became a star,
it wouldn't be nearly as bright in our sky as
the Sun. It wouldn't even be as bright in the
sky as the moon is. Actually, one of our sharp
listeners did this calculation, Dmitri Rudoi, found that a red
dwarf would be a bit brighter than the moon in
our sky. Thanks for keeping us honest, Dmitri. So it
would just be like a fairly bright star in the sky.
(29:34):
Oh really, even as is without inflating in Jupiter. If
suddenly Jupiter ignited became a star, which we said, well,
it couldn't happen. But even if you turn Jupiter into
a red dwarf, if you made it a hundred times
as big and it ignited and it was a red dwarf,
it wouldn't be as bright as our Sun, and it's
much further away from us, so it would appear dimmer
(29:56):
in our sky, So it wouldn't be very bright. Oh,
the distance from us to the Sun is much closer
than us to Jupiter. Yeah. Wow, Jupiter six times as
far away from the Sun as we are, which means
that at its closest approach, it's like four times as
far away from Earth as the Sun is. And so
(30:16):
that makes it one is bright if it was the
same brightness as the Sun, but it's going to be,
you know, much smaller than the Sun at the minimum threshold,
and so maybe just not that bright in the sky
compared to the Sun or even the Moon. So pretty
much nothing would change if Jupiter suddenly became a star. Yeah,
it wouldn't really change at all. I mean, it wouldn't
(30:36):
be as bright as elon Musk's star link satellites. Even
we wouldn't get that dramatic too, suns floating in the sky.
Look Skywalker looking out into the sundown of two stars.
It would just be like a bright star in the sky. Yeah,
And so for that to happen to have like two
effective suns in your sky. You really need a second
star that's as big, as bright and as close. That's
(30:59):
really critical, and that that would probably be kind of
a mess, wouldn't it, Like if you had would be
acute these sons that close together to each other and
to you, It wouldn't be a happy, happy solar system. Yeah.
And if you somehow created that son and then inserted
in there our existing solar system, there's no way that
any of our orbits would be stable, right, would like
completely gravitationally perturbed all the orbits. Like say, for example,
(31:23):
a huge sun came and ate Jupiter, like some sun
from another solar system happened to intersect our solar system
and just gobbled up Jupiter, and then we call that
the new Jupiter for some reason, that would totally destroy
our solar system, Like Earth would get flung out into
interstellar space. There's almost no chance that all the planets
would then like suddenly fall into a new stable set
of orbits around this pair of suns. Like that's very
(31:46):
totally disrupt our our orbits and probably tosses out into space. Yeah, yeah,
we'd become a rogue planet. We'd end up with no
stars all right. Well, so then what is more likely
to happen to Jupiter. What is Jupiter's most like feature?
Jupiter future is actually not that exciting. I mean, planets
are pretty stable. They're just hunks of stuff that are
(32:07):
mostly inert. I mean the stuff going on in the
center of the Earth, but it's not burning itself, it's
not consuming itself. So like stars have a lifespan because
they're burning their fuel and eventually they can't manage that
anymore and they collapse. Right The fire from that fusion
is sustaining them. But we're not really burning anything here
on Earth, and Jupiter isn't burning anything. It's just a
(32:28):
lump of stuff in space. And they can do that
basically forever. Lump of gas. Yeah, Like if you just
have a blob of gas, it can just be a
blob of gas forever. Yeah, exactly. And you know, the
Earth has an uncertain future because we're so close to
the Sun that when the Sun evolves and becomes a
red giant, it's going to become much much larger. In
the end stages of its life, it's going to grow
(32:50):
and eventually the Earth will be inside the Sun. Like
the Sun will grow so large that where we are
currently will be inside the radius of the Sun, but
for jim But Jupiter it's much further away. It's got
a good spot, so they're not going to be consumed
by the Sun or maybe even affected by it. Yeah,
when the Sun goes red giant and absorbs the Earth,
(33:13):
Jupiter will be fine out there. I mean the radiation
from the Sun will increase, the heat from the Sun
will increase, and so that will increase the amount of
solar radiation that lands on Jupiter. So it might get
like more violent storms on its surface, it might affect
that red spot, might heat it up a little bit,
but it's not going to be a big change for Jupiter.
So Jupiter is in a pretty good spot. It's happy
(33:33):
to sit there forever and not really do anything. It
sounds like we're going to have to move to Jupiter
in a few billion years. I wouldn't recommend it. Jupiter
is not that great a place to land, as the
Galileo probe discovered. But maybe one of the moons of Jupiter, right,
they're saying we could potentially live in one of them.
There's water maybe in some of them. Yeah, there's lots
(33:54):
of moons of Jupiter. That we think might already have life.
We did some fun podcast episodes about what's happening in
the potential underground oceans on some of those frozen moons.
Some of them have like a thick layer of ice
with water underneath, and so that could be a nice
place to live. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a big ball of
ice and water out there just waiting for us. Yeah,
(34:14):
assuming the aliens don't come and turn Jupiter into a star.
But but they can't. They would have to grow it
by a hundred. They would have to grow by a hundred, Yeah, exactly,
So they have to steal all that mass from our Sun.
So I don't know what the aliens were thinking in
two thousand ten. Well, I wonder if the future Jupiter
juve and astronomers are then gonna be laughing at our astronomers,
(34:34):
just like we were just laughing at the dinosaur astronomers saying, man,
that should have seen the sun, should have known that
the Sun was going to turn the red giant and
gone it out of the way. Yeah, well that's gonna
be in like a billion years, and so I hope
that we're still doing astronomy in a billion years, and
then we have those kind of things to think about
and to worry about. But I also hope that in
a billion years, we've gotten off the planet and we
(34:57):
have our Jovian Moon calling ease and astronomy happening in
the outer reaches the Solar system, and maybe even developed
warp drive to go do other solar systems. Yeah, I
guess that's what you could do it you can build
a wormhole that connects Jupiter in the Sun to sort
of shunt material from the Sun directly into Jupiter. Oh no, now,
(35:17):
now we sparked imagination of a physicist. What's the worst
that can happen if we create a wormhole like a
nice Jupiter and the Sun? Yeah, exactly. Well, Fortunately I
don't know any engineers willing to actually build this thing
for me, so I'm free to speculate wildly. Oh good, Yeah, well,
we'll all make a pack. All of us engineers will
make a pack. Not to help any physicists do any
(35:39):
kind of crazy stuff. Don't answer emails from Daniel, even
if it seems like a good idea, yeah, even if
he has money. Don't did reply? All right, Well, it
sounds like a lot of the people who maybe we're
worried that Jupiter was going to turn into a star.
Can rest easy because it doesn't sound like Jupiter is
going to be a star anytime soon, or and even
(36:00):
become a star anytime soon. Or maybe that's right. Even
though Jupiter totally dwarfs us, it's really small compared to
the thresholds necessary to become even the dimmest, lamest kind
of star. And it's much much smaller than those cosmic
giants that are out there fusing and illuminating the cosmos.
And so while there is a lot of drama out
(36:21):
there in the universe, stars collapsing and forming and all
sorts of crazy things happening, it seems like Jupiter it's
pretty solid. So rest easy and relaxed because Jupiter is
just gonna keep on floating out there, keeping its big
red eye on. That's right, and we recommend you invest
in Jovian moon real estate. Can you is that? Listen
on redfin Send me a check and I will send
(36:44):
you a title to your new property. It sounds like
you could get arrested for that, Daniel, But all right, well,
we hope you enjoyed Dad. Thanks for joining us, and
thanks for sending in your Questions. If you like a
question answered on the podcast, please send it to us
to question at Daniel and Jorge dot com. See you
next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and
(37:12):
Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcast For my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hey, Daniel, do you ever think about what the night
sky looked like to our ancestors? I do. I wonder
how it looked at them. And I also like thinking
even further back in the past, like what did the
dinosaurs see in the sky? Yeah, they probably should have
looked at this guy more carefully, you know, looking for
meteors for example. I know dinosaur astronomers totally fell down
on the job, but you can even think further back,
(00:30):
like the first eyeballs on Earth five million years ago,
you mean, like microbe astronomers, or you know, I think
to the future. I wonder what the night sky will
look like to humans billions of years from It could
be totally different. I mean, if there even our humans
then yeah. Well I'm thinking about the future cockroach astronomers
and hoping they will keep an eye on the stars
(00:52):
for us. Whatever they see doesn't bug them. I am
(01:12):
more hamming cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. I'm Daniel.
I'm a particle physicist. And that was the first time
I ever said cockroach on the podcast and astronomers in
the same sentence Publicly. I love astronomers, I love astronomy.
I'm nothing but pro astronomers. I did like the idea
of dinosaur astronomers. That's pretty cool. My favorite story about
(01:34):
dinosaur astronomers is that they really did have a chance
to save themselves. Your favorite I feel like you thought
about this before. Well, yeah, absolutely. You know that the
meteor that came and wiped out the dinosaurs made a
near past by the Earth ten years earlier, Yeah, and
came close enough that they should have been able to
look up and see it in the sky. So if
(01:55):
they had funded their version of NASA, they could have
saved their own lives ten years. Do you think dinosaurs
could have built spaceships? And necessity is the mother of invention, right,
do you think they should have called the dinosaur Bruce
Willis put them on a spaceship and getting to deflect
that asteroid in ten years? Well, you know the other
option is what happened, So anything is better than that.
But anyways, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge talk
(02:17):
about dinosaur astronomers. That's all we do. Daniel and Jorge
digress in the very first moments of the podcast. That's
right now. Welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explained
the universe a production of I Heart Radio in which
we talk about all the amazing and beautiful and crazy
things about the universe, the violent events, the incredible drama
happening in the inside of stars, the tiny little particles
(02:39):
that apparently make up everything you see and touch and taste. Yeah,
all of the spacey stuff out there, happening in the
universe and even in our own backyards, or I guess
our solar system backyard. That's right, because when you look
out into the night sky, you are not seeing a
still picture. You are not seeing a flat image. You
are seeing a drama unfolding on cosmic distance sales and
(03:00):
time scales. If you were to look at the night
sky sped up a little bit, you would see incredible events,
huge explosions, massive collisions. It would put Hollywood to shame.
It's like a cosmological telenovella, a lot of twists and turns.
I don't know if anybody's really like backstabbing anybody, or
does the Earth have an evil twin on the other
side of the Sun Planet X Extreme close up. I
(03:24):
don't know if there's so much political intrigue, but there
is definitely drama. There are things that happened rapidly, all
of a sudden. There are sudden changes of fate. There
are things that are happening, and so I think it's
fun to think about how our solar system will evolve. Yeah,
because as we as humans found out about a hundred
years ago, the universe is not static. Things are changing.
(03:45):
The stars are moving, the galaxies are blazing across the universe,
and new stars are being born all the time. That's right.
And stars can change right there, formed from the collapse
of gases into a hot dense object that confuse eventually
to and into something else like a black hole or
a white dwarf. They go through this evolution, and so
it's natural to also wonder, like what about planets? Do
(04:08):
planets have future stages in their evolution? Are they like Pokemon?
They can evolve into different versions. They say that Earth
is only stage one. I don't know enough about Pokemon
to even really make that joke. I just watched my
kids play, so I can say energy cards and pokemons evolved.
Then we're at the end of my knowledge. I think
our planet is Earth type. Is it an e X
(04:29):
or a g X? Does it have the shiny glint
on it? It used to. I think that's right. And
we did a podcast recently in which we talked about
Jupiter and how close Jupiter was to having become a star,
and a bunch of listeners wrote in asking us about that.
Jim Sanchez, Doug Dodds, and Ryan Kyrkiss all wrote and
(04:49):
asked us like, well, is Jupiter on the verge of
becoming a star? Could it one day eventually become a star?
Because I guess it's kind of a fine line between
the being a giant cloud of dust and being a
giant gas planet and maybe being a giant ball of
flaming gas like the Sun. It's kind of a fine line.
It turns out. How final line is it either on
(05:11):
fire or you're not? That seems pretty clear cut to me. Well,
I mean what does it take, like a match or
you know, a spark. I guess that's the question we'll
be talking about today. That's right. So to the other program,
we'll be asking the question could Jupiter become a star?
(05:32):
Is it too late for Jupiter or can it still
you know, find the right role and suddenly be the
new darling of Hollywood. Hey, you know, jump on the
TikTok and anybody can become a star. Oh hey, that's
what Jupiter needs. That's right. But there was some actual
serious talk about this. A couple of decades ago. NASA
sent a probe out to study Jupiter, and they didn't
want the probe to infect any of Jupiter's moons where
(05:55):
we think there might potentially be life, right, my crobial life.
And we didn't want to cray Galileo this probe onto
any of Jupiter's moons because we didn't want to bring
any earth microbes. Right, once you bring Earth's microbes, you
can no longer ask like are their native microbes? And
so instead they crashed the probe into Jupiter itself because
we don't care about infect the Jupiter. I think the
(06:17):
idea was that it would burn up and get crushed
because Jupiter has this incredible atmosphere, so we get immolated
in descent, whereas the moons don't have those atmospheres, and
so it would actually land on the surface and potentially survive.
But there was some concern about that. Yeah, people were wondering, like,
if Jupiter is on the verge of becoming a star,
if it's this huge ball of gas and you drop
(06:39):
a match into it essentially, is there impossibility that it
could have ignited the atmosphere or Jupiter and birth a
new star, because I mean Jupiter. If you think about it,
it's a giant ball of hydrogen, right, kind of like
the Hindenberg. Kind of like the Hindenburg, but much bigger.
That's what I mean. It's like the big balloon made
out of hydrogen and all you need is a little
(07:00):
flame and some oxygen. All of a sudden, it sounds
very unstable, does it sounds like a nine twenties idea? Yeah?
And you know this actually appears in science fiction as well,
in the well known series two thousand and one, two
thousand ten, etcetera. They turn Jupiter into a star on purpose. Yeah,
on purpose, I guess. You know. The aliens. We didn't
(07:21):
really ever understand their psychology, but they turn it into
a new star. They call it Lucifer. The Aliens call
it Lucifer. I don't remember the details that book. Who
calls it Lucifer, Whether it's the aliens naming it or
you know, earthbound cartoonists who are elected to a naming
committee who gave it that name. But I do remember
the sequel to two thousand and one two thousand and ten.
(07:41):
I think that that the end, Jupiter does become a star.
Sorry spoiler um, because the star at the end of
that movie. And I was wondered, like, oh, that's pretty interesting,
but what does that mean? Is that going to change
our solar system or what's the big deal? Yeah? Exactly,
So it's an interesting question. It's right here in our backyard.
It seems relevant. So we thought we would try to
(08:03):
figure out how close is Jupiter to becoming a star?
If you wanted to turn it into a star, what
would you have to do? So, as usual, Daniel went
out there into the wilds of the Internet and ask
people to submit their answer to the question could Jupiter
become a star? That's right, So thank you to everybody
who participated, And if you'd like to participate in future
(08:23):
rounds of person on the Internet interviews, please send us
a note to questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com.
We'd love for you to answer our questions. And before
you listen to these answers, think about it for a second.
Do you think Jupiter could become a star. Here's what
people had to say. I think anyone who claims to
know where the Jupiter can turn into a star. Absolutely
(08:45):
is probably exaggerating their knowledge in order to make up
one last say. I think Jupiter is like a filed
star because it's not massive enough to have the fusion
reactions at the cool The only way I can think
of that it could become a star would be if
it pulled in enough matter. Well it didn't for our reason,
(09:08):
I suppose not enough mass um. I didn't hear that
almost became a star. Well, well maybe it's if a
lot of planets I think the universe is are unlikely
to happen, But it happened, So perhaps it's just as
(09:31):
unlikely that Tupiter would turn into a star. But I
suppose it could happen. Yeah, what kind of what kind
of start? Jupiter is a gas giant and it's made
of gas, and stars are also made of gas. So
I think maybe if a small star came into it.
(09:52):
I suppose if it became big enough and had enough gravity,
it could turn on and become a star. But I'm
not aware that it's so it's growing. My short answer
is I don't think so. Yes, I think that it's
eight times more massive that it would need to become
in order for Jupiter to start burning hydrogen and fusing
(10:14):
it into helium. But even if you were to combine
all the planets in the Solar System, you wouldn't get
to the mass needed. So by natural means, no, it's
not possible. But theoretically could Jupiter become a star? Then yes,
you just need to add eight more jupiters to it.
(10:36):
If Jupiter's ape does extremely well, I think Jupiter might
be able to become a starmp if anyone could be
a start with. Oh my gosh. I believe that the
gas giants have cleaned up our Solar system enough that
it is unlikely that Jupiter would be able to get
enough mass to turn into a star. Well, theoretically possible
(10:59):
in time. I think the way that it might happen
is maybe if there are a rogue planet that collided
with Jupiter or sufficient other material like comets and asteroids
and so on, But that seems implosible. Alright. Some great
answers I like the one that said yes, I mean no, wait,
(11:21):
what's the star? If you're not going to be accurate,
you should at least be well. I guess that perfectly
reflects how I feel. I'm like, yes, no, wait, let's
define a star. Yeah. I think it is an interesting
question because you know, different stuff out there have evolutions,
you know, we see stuff changing in the universe, and
we haven't ever talked about the question of like, is
(11:43):
a planet stable? Could a planet just hang out forever
or does it have the next natural stage in its evolution? Yeah?
Is this possible that we suddenly have two stars in
our sky? You know, kind of like star wars? Yeah?
What would that mean for when you have to go
to work and abaly make our days longer? Yeah, it
would make our days longer and much more irregular. Right,
(12:04):
you wouldn't have regular patterns. You have times when both
stars were in the sky and times when only one
of them was in the sky. Have you ever read
the three body problem? You know, the calendar on that
planet is very complicated. All right, let's jump into it, Daniel.
What makes something a star versus a planet? I guess
let's start with that question. What happens at that fourth
in the road for a big ball of gas where
it turns into a jupiter, or it turns into a star,
(12:27):
and or can it kind of switch over? Yeah? So
really it's all about mass, Like if you are a
big enough blob of stuff, then gravity will pull you
in and compress you hard enough that you will start
to fuse. You'll create the conditions necessary to squish these
particles together so they fuse, which releases a huge amount
(12:48):
of energy. And that's really the distinction between a planet
and a star. A star is using, it's releasing energy,
it's burning itself, and a planet is much more inert
than no fusion happening at the center of the Earth
or at the center of Jupiter, for example, And that's
just because we don't have enough stuff, Like if we
had more stuff, it would be heavier, and things get
more compressing you sort of get to that pressure where
(13:09):
fusion happens. That's right. It's all about the stuff, and
it depends on which kind of stuff. Like if you're
just hydrogen, just gas, then you need less stuff. Then
if you're like a huge ball of oxygen or carbon,
because the heavier elements take higher pressure or higher temperature
conditions in order to fuse, So hydrogen is the easiest.
So if you're gonna go all hydrogen, you need a
(13:30):
big ball of gas. If you're gonna go all carbon
or all oxygen or something heavier, you need a bigger bone.
But in principle, if you took the Earth and made
it much more massive, same stuff, same mixture of stuff,
it would turn into a star. Wow, how much more stuff?
I guess? I guess The question is what does it
take to be a star? How much stuff do you need?
And we can think about it in terms of like
(13:50):
pounds or kilograms or squirrels, but those units are hard
to grasp because the numbers are so big. Let's just
talk about in terms of stuff. So let's talk about
in terms of units of like one sun. So the
minimum amount of stuff you need to reach any sort
of fusion is about one one of the mass of
the sun of our son, of our son. Yeah, we're
(14:11):
using our suns as a unit. You could have something
one one of our sun and it could be a star.
That's right, And that's only like really special. That's the
absolute minimum. It gets you above the shelf for the lowest, weakest,
lamest kind of fusion. And if you reach that threshold,
you're called a brown dwarf. And it's a special kind
of fusion. It's not just hydrogen fusion. It's deuterium fusion
(14:35):
and deuterium, if you remember, is an isotope of hydrogen,
and the nucleus you have a proton and a neutron,
not just a proton, and that neutron is crucial because
it helps sort of bring those protons together and stick
them together. I see, um, that sounds small, like one
hundreds the size of the Sun. But that's it like
what like ten earth? That's yes, something like ten thou earths.
(14:56):
It's a lot bigger than the Earth, and so it's
not that small, all right. I mean, it's small compared
to our Sun, but it's a big object. And they're
called brown dwarfs, but they're pretty badly named because they're
not actually brown. They're not actually dwarves if they're ten
thousand earths. Also, so two strikes there for the physics
community in one name their dwarfs compared to the other stars.
(15:19):
But they don't look at all brown. They look magenta
or like orange red. And that's just because the kind
of fusion that happens in the kind of light that
they admit I see. But they're still sort of big
balls of fiery stuff. They just they don't glows brightly
and they're kind of tinged in a certain color, and
these things exist and they're not that rare in the universe.
Is one like six and a half light years away
(15:40):
from us. It's called Luman sixteen. And so they're not
that easy to see because they're not that bright. But
you know, theoretically we understand that they should exist and
we see them out there, and so this is totally
a possibility. It's the minimum threshold to become a star.
And then those are the smallest stars. So then what's
the next step up? Next step up is you know,
really you might call the first kind of real star,
(16:02):
and this is a red dwarf, a brown dwarf. People argue, like,
you know, is it a big, hot burning planet. Is
a star that's you know, it's kind of lame, but
a red dwarf nobody argues about, Like, it's definitely a star.
It burns hydrogen. Like essentially, this is the minimum star
you need if you just start from hydrogen. If you
have one tenth the mass of the Sun and a
(16:23):
huge ball of hydrogen gas, gravity will pull it together
and squeeze it hard enough for it to fuse fuse.
But in a brown star, there's no fusion. There is fusion,
but it's deterior and fusion. It's not hydrogen fusion. A
brown star is not hot enough to fuse hydrogen. You
need that extra neutron in the nucleus to make the
fusion happen, and so the fusion doesn't release as much
(16:43):
energy either. There's sort of like a cooler, weaker lam
or kind of fusion, but it's still fusion. It's just
kind of an easier fusion. It's easier and it's not
as dramatic. It doesn't produce as much energy. So that's
why the brown dwarfs aren't so luminous. All right. So
then when you get to one tenth of the mass
with the Sun, then you get the real cooking coin.
That's right, that's a legit star. It's a red dwarf,
(17:05):
and you know there's one that's only six years away.
It has a name that's all like letters and acronym,
so it's totally unpronounceable. But the cool thing about it
is that it's really dense, like it has one tenth
the mass of the Sun, but it's radius it's the
same as Saturn. Wow, So it's tiny, but it's it's compact.
It's a little dwarf. It's a little red dwarf. It's
(17:28):
perfectly named and is it red? So there you go
to check marks for the astronomy community terms. You're you're
up to zero then zero zero zero physicists, this is
zero public. But you know, something the size of a
planet can definitely be a star. That's not an issue.
(17:48):
It's not just about size, it's about mass. Remember, gravity
will gather this stuff together and make it really dense
for density. Yeah, all right, well it's clear that things
about the size of planets can become stars. And so
now let's talk about Jupiter and whether Jupiter could or
could have become a star. But first let's take a
quick break. All right, Daniel, we're talking about making a
(18:22):
star in our own backyard. So what do we need?
A grill, some matches, a lot of flower which is
on short supply. Oh no, better order a crate of it.
All right, So let's we're talking about whether Jupiter could
be one day become a star, which is a crazy idea.
But you're telling me that it's all about the stuff.
You have enough stuff and you're compressed enough, then almost
(18:44):
anything can become a star. Yeah, And so let's talk
about Jupiter. How how massive is Jupiter. Jupiter is about
one tenth of one of the mass of the Sun,
so one of the song Okay, so it's it's ten
times too small to be a brown Earth. Yeah, I
remember the threshold is one hundred of the Sun for
a brown dwarf, one tenth of the Sun for a
(19:05):
red dwarf. And so Jupiter it's ten times too small
to be a brown dwarf and a hundred times too
small to be a red dwarf. And it's made out
of roughly the right stuff. It's mostly hydrogen. It's just
not big enough icy and you need that stuff because
I mean, while you like, the Earth could become a
star if you compress it down enough, but there's nothing
(19:26):
really compressing the Earth that much except for its gravity,
and so without that stuff to create the gravity, you
can't turn into a star. Yeah, the Earth is like
one three hundred thousand's the size of the Sun, and
so we're nowhere near massive enough to ever become a star.
Jupiter is like it's in within shouting distance, you know,
like ten times too small to be a pathetic little
(19:47):
brown dwarf is like it's you know, ten times. It's
not a small thing to overcome, but it's still ten
times too small. Like that doesn't seem likely to happen
anytime soon. No, And Jupiter is already really big, right,
So it sends the In order for Jupiter become a star,
you have to multiply its mass by a factor of ten.
That means like gather nine more jubiters somewhere somehow and
(20:10):
added to junior. Al Right, well, it doesn't sound very
likely then that Jupiter is going to turn into star.
Why was NASA worried about it years ago? You know,
I think they just thought that crashing a probe into
it could spark a reaction. You know, the process we're
talking about, a sort of a natural gathering due to gravity.
You know, the Hindenburg went into flames without being the
(20:30):
mass of the Sun, and so people were just worried
that adding a spark to a ball of gas could
potentially ignite it. But I think that was a small
community of paranoid voices inside NASA, and most people weren't
too worried. But you know, if you know the story,
we were worried about igniting the atmosphere when we tested
the first atomic bomb in New Mexico. Really, yeah, that
was a possible concern. Yeah, before they tested it, they
(20:53):
did the calculations and they couldn't rule out igniting the atmosphere.
But you know, they went ahead and tried it. Anyway,
what's the worst that can happen? So it's not just
particle physicists that are potentially ending the world. Okay, oh good,
it's other kinds of physicists, that's right, and even ending
potentially other worlds. Yeah. So if you wanted to turn
(21:16):
Jupiter into a star, you'd have to somehow gather these materials. Yeah,
let's talk about that. If you're an alien in the
Arthursday Clark novel, how would you do it? Well, you know,
where can you get these materials? Like, what is the
source of raw materials you need to turn Jupiter into
a star. There's really the biggest things in the Solar
system are the Sun and Jupiter, and after that everything
else is a tiny detail. So the only place to
(21:39):
get this up is from the Sun. So you have
to basically steal from the Sun, siphon off a huge
amount of matter, and you know, feed that into Jupiter somehow. Really,
there's not enough gas floating around or asteroids floating around
to kind of feed Jupiter. There's only a tiny little
bit of gas and asteroids. Most of the stuff is
coalesced into the Sun and into Jupiter. And you know,
(22:00):
even Jupiter is like a tiny fracture. Remember it's one
one thousands of the mass of the Sun. So if
you like made a bar chart of all the stuff
in this solar system, it would basically just be the
Sun and then you know, a few crumbs. So Jupiter
is just like the biggest crumb, and after that there's
basically nothing of note. Al Right, So you would need
Jupiter to be ten times bigger, and so maybe let's
(22:22):
talk about how that would look like, Like, let's say
we increase the massive Jupiter by two how would it
look different. It wouldn't have enough energy to fuse, right,
and so it just looks like a bigger Jupiter. It
just you know, be bigger and fatter, and it would
have just as many crazy storms, but really no fundamental change.
It might emit more radiation because it would have more
(22:42):
activity in the interior do the increased pressure, Like the
surface would look sort of the same, would just be bigger.
It would just be bigger yeah, and the service would
look sort of the same. But we don't really understand jupiters,
like cloud patterns and what's going on there, the crazy vortices,
the red spot. That's the kind of thing we don't understand.
And if we preet Jupiter's mass, then all the features
(23:03):
that contribute to that craziness would be doubled, and so
we'd probably get it, as you know, twice as many
bands and much more craziness, and maybe the red spot
would be even more insane. Right, But there are a
lots of questions about these gas giants. Remember, Saturn has
a hexagon on his north pole that we don't understand either, Right.
We did a whole podcast about that mystery. It would
be a fascinating experiment to do to double the massive
(23:24):
Jupiter and just see what happens, Like, hey, turn that
knob and see how crazy these planets get. Yeah, let's
do it, Daniel, Okay, I'll write a proposal. What's the
worst that can happen? Well, what what would be happening
on the inside, Like I know that the inside of
Jupiter there's like what is it frozen hydrogen or something?
Metallic hydrogen? Metallic hydrogen yea oceans of liquid hydrogen is
(23:46):
all these layers of more and more compressed hydrogen, and
as you add more stuff to it than those layers
get denser and denser, right until at the very core
that's where the fusion would begin. When you get enough
match you sort of like gradually approved and you get
these layers and layers of more intensely squeezed hydrogen. Okay,
so then as I increased man, let's say I'm I'm
(24:07):
pouring more hydrogen into Jupiter. Now we're at like four
times the size of Jupiter right now or the mass?
Do things still change? Like, you know, does it suddenly
become more solid at the core or does it become
like a this nebulous ball of gas or does it
Would it look the same just bigger. It would look
the same, just bigger. I don't know that you would
see much different from the outside. Like again, we don't
(24:30):
understand the patterns on the surface, so it's hard to
predict what those would look like. But on the inside
you be getting new layers, you'd be getting the core
would be denser. Right as you add more mass, you're
creating new layers in the core that are denser and hotter,
and eventually you're gonna make the one that's going to fuse.
I wonder if it would grow another eye. Wouldn't that
(24:50):
be cool? Totally awesome. In fact, we wonder if that happened,
if it was typical or unusual. So really, we should
replicate this project. We should make like d you know,
double jupiters or ten quad jupiters, just to see if
it's a systematic or not. Wow. I mean, while we're
scooping matter out of the sun and playing god, let's
be systematic about it, all right. So now let's say
(25:13):
I keep going and I'm now I've pumped up Jupiter
up to one on the size of the mass of
the Sun, where it could become a brown dwarf. I
guess would it just automatically turn into a brown dwarf
or does it need like some kind of event to
trigger it, or does it happen slowly? Jupiter wouldn't actually
turn into a brown dwarf if you've got it to
one mass of the Sun, because that's a special kind
(25:35):
of process. It needs deuterium. And if we're just adding hydrogen,
remember which just protons and electrons that needs to get
to one tenth the mass of the Sun. Deuterium is
a special thing, and you need a proton and a
neutron and the electron around it, and the neutron helps
that fusion happen. You might think like, well, that's weird.
How's a neutron help fusion happen. It's neutral anyway, right,
(25:58):
Remember neutrons and these ound objects of quarks that have
the strong force. The neutron is what helps hold things together,
like in heavier elements. The neutron is the reason why
the element is stable. It keeps the protons separated, and
the little residual strong force from the quarks helps tie
everything together. So the neutrons are like the little helper
assistant particles making the fusion happen. The Brown Doors used
(26:22):
this special channel only available when you have deterior So
Jupiter isn't mostly deterium, it's mostly hydrogen. Oh man, alright,
So I did all this work. I inflated Jupiter to
ten times in size, and apparently nothing happens. Yeah, exactly.
So let's let's keep going. Let's keep pressing the accelerator
and see what happens to juventer. But first, let's take
(26:44):
a quick break, all right, Daniel. If I pop Jupiter
to one one hundreds the size of the Sun or
the mass of the Sun, nothing would happen. I would
(27:05):
need to take it to one tenth of the mass
of the Sun in order for Jupiter to be a star.
That's right, Make a blob of gas that's one tenth
the mass the Sun. Then gravity will coalesce it and
it will start to fuse, and it will start to glow,
and it will be a new star and you can
name it whatever you like. Well, now I feel all
(27:25):
this pressure to come up with a grid name. But
basically you need a hundred jupiters. You need Juiver to
be a hundred times bigger or more massive in order
for it to ever become a star. And even then
it would be a red dwarf, which is not like
the shiniest, prettiest kind of star. That's right. It would
be much smaller than our star and not as bright.
And would it ignite right away? Or is this like
(27:46):
like a slow burn where it slowly turns into a
red torch. Well, it depends on how dense it is
when you start, Like if you just start from a
big diffused cloud of gas the way our solar system started.
Then it's going to take a long time for gravity
to pull that together. There. If you start from a
place where it's already pretty dense, like about it Densis Jupiter,
then it's not going to take gravity that long because
(28:07):
everything is already pretty close together. But it'll start to
burn from the inside, right, and then that we'll have
to heat the next layers and the next layers and
the next layers, and so this isn't the kind of
thing that's going to happen, you know, in five seconds.
But it's also not going to take a billion years.
Oh I see. It's gonna start at the inside, and
then it's the heat the explosion of that. It's going
to gradually make it to the surface, and then that's
(28:30):
when you'll see its glow exactly. And it's just like
any other kind of fire, you know, the energy put
out by it sustains it, keeps that temperature hot, keeps
those fusion processes going. All right, Well, it sounds like
we're not likely to get a hundred jupiters all in
the same spot suddenly, although it's kind of cool to
(28:51):
think about, and so maybe um step aster, what is
the future of Jupiter. What's going to happen to it.
It's not going to become a star, but what is
it going to become? Yeah, and you know, even if
Jupiter did become a star, like if it turned on,
I just want to mention that it's not going to
be as bright as our sun. And it's much further
from us, right, Jupiter is much further from us than
(29:11):
the Sun is. So even if it became a star,
it wouldn't be nearly as bright in our sky as
the Sun. It wouldn't even be as bright in the
sky as the moon is. Actually, one of our sharp
listeners did this calculation, Dmitri Rudoi, found that a red
dwarf would be a bit brighter than the moon in
our sky. Thanks for keeping us honest, Dmitri. So it
would just be like a fairly bright star in the sky.
(29:34):
Oh really, even as is without inflating in Jupiter. If
suddenly Jupiter ignited became a star, which we said, well,
it couldn't happen. But even if you turn Jupiter into
a red dwarf, if you made it a hundred times
as big and it ignited and it was a red dwarf,
it wouldn't be as bright as our Sun, and it's
much further away from us, so it would appear dimmer
(29:56):
in our sky, So it wouldn't be very bright. Oh,
the distance from us to the Sun is much closer
than us to Jupiter. Yeah. Wow, Jupiter six times as
far away from the Sun as we are, which means
that at its closest approach, it's like four times as
far away from Earth as the Sun is. And so
(30:16):
that makes it one is bright if it was the
same brightness as the Sun, but it's going to be,
you know, much smaller than the Sun at the minimum threshold,
and so maybe just not that bright in the sky
compared to the Sun or even the Moon. So pretty
much nothing would change if Jupiter suddenly became a star. Yeah,
it wouldn't really change at all. I mean, it wouldn't
(30:36):
be as bright as elon Musk's star link satellites. Even
we wouldn't get that dramatic too, suns floating in the sky.
Look Skywalker looking out into the sundown of two stars.
It would just be like a bright star in the sky. Yeah,
And so for that to happen to have like two
effective suns in your sky. You really need a second
star that's as big, as bright and as close. That's
(30:59):
really critical, and that that would probably be kind of
a mess, wouldn't it, Like if you had would be
acute these sons that close together to each other and
to you, It wouldn't be a happy, happy solar system. Yeah.
And if you somehow created that son and then inserted
in there our existing solar system, there's no way that
any of our orbits would be stable, right, would like
completely gravitationally perturbed all the orbits. Like say, for example,
(31:23):
a huge sun came and ate Jupiter, like some sun
from another solar system happened to intersect our solar system
and just gobbled up Jupiter, and then we call that
the new Jupiter for some reason, that would totally destroy
our solar system, Like Earth would get flung out into
interstellar space. There's almost no chance that all the planets
would then like suddenly fall into a new stable set
of orbits around this pair of suns. Like that's very
(31:46):
totally disrupt our our orbits and probably tosses out into space. Yeah, yeah,
we'd become a rogue planet. We'd end up with no
stars all right. Well, so then what is more likely
to happen to Jupiter. What is Jupiter's most like feature?
Jupiter future is actually not that exciting. I mean, planets
are pretty stable. They're just hunks of stuff that are
(32:07):
mostly inert. I mean the stuff going on in the
center of the Earth, but it's not burning itself, it's
not consuming itself. So like stars have a lifespan because
they're burning their fuel and eventually they can't manage that
anymore and they collapse. Right The fire from that fusion
is sustaining them. But we're not really burning anything here
on Earth, and Jupiter isn't burning anything. It's just a
(32:28):
lump of stuff in space. And they can do that
basically forever. Lump of gas. Yeah, Like if you just
have a blob of gas, it can just be a
blob of gas forever. Yeah, exactly. And you know, the
Earth has an uncertain future because we're so close to
the Sun that when the Sun evolves and becomes a
red giant, it's going to become much much larger. In
the end stages of its life, it's going to grow
(32:50):
and eventually the Earth will be inside the Sun. Like
the Sun will grow so large that where we are
currently will be inside the radius of the Sun, but
for jim But Jupiter it's much further away. It's got
a good spot, so they're not going to be consumed
by the Sun or maybe even affected by it. Yeah,
when the Sun goes red giant and absorbs the Earth,
(33:13):
Jupiter will be fine out there. I mean the radiation
from the Sun will increase, the heat from the Sun
will increase, and so that will increase the amount of
solar radiation that lands on Jupiter. So it might get
like more violent storms on its surface, it might affect
that red spot, might heat it up a little bit,
but it's not going to be a big change for Jupiter.
So Jupiter is in a pretty good spot. It's happy
(33:33):
to sit there forever and not really do anything. It
sounds like we're going to have to move to Jupiter
in a few billion years. I wouldn't recommend it. Jupiter
is not that great a place to land, as the
Galileo probe discovered. But maybe one of the moons of Jupiter, right,
they're saying we could potentially live in one of them.
There's water maybe in some of them. Yeah, there's lots
(33:54):
of moons of Jupiter. That we think might already have life.
We did some fun podcast episodes about what's happening in
the potential underground oceans on some of those frozen moons.
Some of them have like a thick layer of ice
with water underneath, and so that could be a nice
place to live. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a big ball of
ice and water out there just waiting for us. Yeah,
(34:14):
assuming the aliens don't come and turn Jupiter into a star.
But but they can't. They would have to grow it
by a hundred. They would have to grow by a hundred, Yeah, exactly,
So they have to steal all that mass from our Sun.
So I don't know what the aliens were thinking in
two thousand ten. Well, I wonder if the future Jupiter
juve and astronomers are then gonna be laughing at our astronomers,
(34:34):
just like we were just laughing at the dinosaur astronomers saying, man,
that should have seen the sun, should have known that
the Sun was going to turn the red giant and
gone it out of the way. Yeah, well that's gonna
be in like a billion years, and so I hope
that we're still doing astronomy in a billion years, and
then we have those kind of things to think about
and to worry about. But I also hope that in
a billion years, we've gotten off the planet and we
(34:57):
have our Jovian Moon calling ease and astronomy happening in
the outer reaches the Solar system, and maybe even developed
warp drive to go do other solar systems. Yeah, I
guess that's what you could do it you can build
a wormhole that connects Jupiter in the Sun to sort
of shunt material from the Sun directly into Jupiter. Oh no, now,
(35:17):
now we sparked imagination of a physicist. What's the worst
that can happen if we create a wormhole like a
nice Jupiter and the Sun? Yeah, exactly. Well, Fortunately I
don't know any engineers willing to actually build this thing
for me, so I'm free to speculate wildly. Oh good, Yeah, well,
we'll all make a pack. All of us engineers will
make a pack. Not to help any physicists do any
(35:39):
kind of crazy stuff. Don't answer emails from Daniel, even
if it seems like a good idea, yeah, even if
he has money. Don't did reply? All right, Well, it
sounds like a lot of the people who maybe we're
worried that Jupiter was going to turn into a star.
Can rest easy because it doesn't sound like Jupiter is
going to be a star anytime soon, or and even
(36:00):
become a star anytime soon. Or maybe that's right. Even
though Jupiter totally dwarfs us, it's really small compared to
the thresholds necessary to become even the dimmest, lamest kind
of star. And it's much much smaller than those cosmic
giants that are out there fusing and illuminating the cosmos.
And so while there is a lot of drama out
(36:21):
there in the universe, stars collapsing and forming and all
sorts of crazy things happening, it seems like Jupiter it's
pretty solid. So rest easy and relaxed because Jupiter is
just gonna keep on floating out there, keeping its big
red eye on. That's right, and we recommend you invest
in Jovian moon real estate. Can you is that? Listen
on redfin Send me a check and I will send
(36:44):
you a title to your new property. It sounds like
you could get arrested for that, Daniel, But all right, well,
we hope you enjoyed Dad. Thanks for joining us, and
thanks for sending in your Questions. If you like a
question answered on the podcast, please send it to us
to question at Daniel and Jorge dot com. See you
next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and
(37:12):
Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcast For my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Whiteson
Kelly Weinersmith
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