Jupiter

[ads8525]

What do you guys think would happen if this was possible? If Jupiter had the same mass it has now but was undergoing nuclear reactions of such a level that it was shining just as bright as our sun, what would that do to our life here on Earth?”

[antimatter]

Everything would change, the temperature would increase rapidly, all sort of chaos.

The idea is explored in 2010: Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clarke.

 

We most likely would cease to have night, the temperature would go up about 10 degrees (just a guess).

 

Unfortunately, Jupiter's mass doesn't really matter, it's more of the density as far as I know.

[Riogho]

There isn't enough mass there to get the core hot enough to cause any amount of fusion comparable to the sun's.

[YT2095]

you`d get a LOT of interference on the 14 meter band!

[insane_alien]

well, first of all, jupiter would explode in pretty short order as its gravity is not strong enough for it to hold together. when the debris hits earth, the magnetic field will undergo rapid distortions which will cause problems with some electronic equipment.

 

humanity would probably survive.

[powerstar]

Would you be so kind to explain in short detail why you are certain these effects would take place....thanks!

 

 

 

 

well, first of all, jupiter would explode in pretty short order as its gravity is not strong enough for it to hold together. when the debris hits earth, the magnetic field will undergo rapid distortions which will cause problems with some electronic equipment.

 

humanity would probably survive.

 

Would you care to explain in concise detail why these changes would take place? Thank you kindly!

 

 

 

Everything would change, the temperature would increase rapidly, all sort of chaos.

The idea is explored in 2010: Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clarke.

 

We most likely would cease to have night, the temperature would go up about 10 degrees (just a guess).

 

Unfortunately, Jupiter's mass doesn't really matter, it's more of the density as far as I know.

[baric]

What do you guys think would happen if this was possible? If Jupiter had the same mass it has now but was undergoing nuclear reactions of such a level that it was shining just as bright as our sun, what would that do to our life here on Earth?"

 

I'm going to ignore the physical impossibilities of this and try to answer your question per the intent you asked.

 

The Sun burns about 635e12 kg per second of Hydrogen for fuel. Jupiter has a mass of 1.89e27 kilograms, 90% of which is Hydrogen (fuel for stellar fusion).

 

This means that, in order to burn as brightly as the Sun, Jupiter would burn 2.68e12 seconds before running out of Hydrogen fuel, or about 85,000 years.

 

With two suns, one at 1 AU from Earth and the other averaging 5.2 AU from Earth, our planet would receive energy equivalent to the Sun being 4% closer. That would raise the effective temperature of our planet about 5 degrees Kelvin, or as bad as some of the worst-case global warming scenarios -- on top of our own global warming issues.

 

The ice caps would melt, lowering the albedo of the planet and probably warming things up a bit more. It would be global warming on steroids, with all of the flooding, agricultural and sociological problems that would cause.

 

For 85,000 years.

Edited November 16, 2011 by baric

[michel123456]

With two suns, one at 1 AU from Earth and the other averaging 5.2 AU from Earth, our planet would receive energy equivalent to the Sun being 4% closer.

 

Very impressive. How did you do that?

[insane_alien]

Would you be so kind to explain in short detail why you are certain these effects would take place....thanks!

 

well, if you magically made jupiter capable of fusion, there would be a very sudden and intense outward pressure from the expanding hot plasma at the core.

 

this pressure would be unbalanced as jupiter is currently close to hydrostatic equilibrium. if we are assuming that jupiter is supposed to be bright enough to shine then the columb barrier would need to be lowered by a fair amount so very suddenly you have a large amount of fusible matter that is getting very hot. also, for the first while the increased heat is only going to accelerate the rate of fusion. it will essentially be a bomb.

 

this is believed to happen in protostars as well which blow of an outer layer when fusion ignites.

 

in the case of jupiter, the gravity is low enough that the layer it blows off would be most of it.

[Airbrush]

What do you guys think would happen if this was possible? If Jupiter had the same mass it has now but was undergoing nuclear reactions of such a level that it was shining just as bright as our sun, what would that do to our life here on Earth?

 

The only way the mass of Jupiter could "shine as bright as our sun" is if it became a black hole and the accretion disk happened to be small enough to generate the energy equivalent to our Sun.

 

In the movie 2010 Jupiter became a tiny brown dwarf star and that would not shine as bright as our Sun.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Airbrush

[Arch2008]

You also have a problem of semantics. Jupiter’s surface area is about one percent that of the Sun. By definition, brightness is determined by luminosity divided by surface area. So if the present surface area of Jupiter magically “was shining just as bright as our Sun”, then only one percent of the energy the Sun uses would be needed to accomplish this. Energy propagates through space according to the inverse square law. If the Sun were five times as far away as it is now, we would only get one twenty-fifth as much energy from it. Thus, keeping the Jupiter at 5.2 AU from Earth value and factoring in an energy output for a Jupiter “as bright as our Sun”, then we would get one twenty-fifth of one percent as much energy from this Bright Jupiter, as we get from the Sun. This would approximately be about half a watt per affected square meter of the Earth’s surface.