The best way to explore a planet is to land on it. Therefore, people sent spacecraft to the Moon, Venus, Mars, Titan - the moon of Saturn … The list goes on for a long time.
But there are several places in the solar system that we may never explore as much as we want. One such place is Jupiter.
Jupiter is basically composed of hydrogen and helium. So trying to land on it would be like trying to land on a cloud here on Earth. There is no surface to lean on. Only countless kilometers of gas …
Then the question arises: is it possible to fly into Jupiter from one side and fly out from the other? In fact, no, you won't even get half the way. So, here's what happens when you try to land on Jupiter:
It is important to note that in this example, in the first half of the journey to the center of Jupiter, we are using a lunar lander. In reality, this craft is relatively fragile compared to, for example, NASA's Orion spacecraft. Therefore, a lunar lander will not be used to land on any planet that has an atmosphere, such as Jupiter. However, any spacecraft, no matter how reliable it is, will not live long on Jupiter, so a lunar lander is just as good for this hypothetical scenario.
First, there is no oxygen in Jupiter's atmosphere, so make sure you have an adequate supply of it. Secondly, the temperature is very high there, so prepare an air conditioner. Now you are ready for this incredible journey.
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Now grab onto something tight. When you enter the upper atmosphere, you will be racing towards the center of Jupiter at a speed of about 177,000 km / h only due to its gravity. So you will very quickly find yourself in a denser layer of the atmosphere, which you will hit like a wall. However, this blow will not be enough to stop you.
In about three minutes you will reach the top of the cloud layer at a depth of 250 km. Here you will experience all the delights of the rotation of Jupiter, which is the fastest rotating planet in the solar system - it makes one revolution in about 9.5 Earth hours. This creates powerful winds that rush around the planet at a speed of over 500 km / h.
After another 120 kilometers, you will reach the border to which Jupiter was ever explored: the Galileo probe reached this mark in 1995. 58 minutes after entering the atmosphere, contact with the probe was lost - it was destroyed by monstrous pressure.
The pressure here is 100 times greater than on the surface of the Earth. And you won't see anything, so you have to rely on equipment to navigate the space.
After another 700 kilometers, the pressure will be 1150 times greater. There is a chance to survive here if your launching module is designed as a bathyscaphe Trieste - a deep-sea research vehicle that dives into the Mariana Trench. A little deeper - and none of the existing human mechanisms will survive such high temperature and pressure.
However, if by some miracle you manage to descend even deeper, you will discover the greatest mysteries of Jupiter. Unfortunately, however, you will not be able to tell the others about it - the atmosphere of Jupiter absorbs radio waves, so communication with the outside world is impossible.
Once you reach a depth of 4500 kilometers, the ambient temperature will already be 3300⁰C. That's enough to melt tungsten, the most refractory metal in the universe.
You have been flying for 12 hours - and not even halfway there.
At around 21,000 kilometers you will reach the deepest layer of Jupiter. The pressure here is 2 million times higher than on the surface of the Earth, and the temperature is higher than on the Sun. These conditions are so extreme that they alter the chemical properties of hydrogen. Its atoms are very tightly compressed and are so close that the electronic bonds between them are broken, and an unusual substance is formed - metallic hydrogen. Metallic hydrogen reflects all the light that hits it, so if you try to shine down and see something there, it won't be possible.
It is also very dense - much denser than stone. As you head further, the buoyant force of metallic hydrogen will counter the force of gravity pulling you down. Therefore, first you will be pushed up, and then - pulled down again, like on a swing. And when these forces become equal, you will float somewhere in Jupiter, unable to go deeper or rise up.
In summary, landing on Jupiter is a bad idea. A person will never see with his own eyes what is hidden under these majestic clouds.
But the other day NASA released the data recorded by the Juno probe. They indicate that Jupiter is an even more complex planet than previously thought. It turned out, for example, that strong vortices fixed in its atmosphere penetrate into the planet and cause changes in the gravitational field. According to information about gravity, Jupiter's gas core rotates like a solid, The Verge reports. Juno also took infrared images of the planet's surface. Thanks to them, it turned out that cyclones in the atmosphere of Jupiter at its poles add up to bizarre patterns. Scientists have not yet established the reason for this. Launched in 2011, Juno entered Jupiter's orbit in 2016. It is assumed that the device will work until mid-2018, after which it will be lowered into the planet's atmosphere, where it will burn up.