What if jupiter exploded

Look at some of the spectacular failures of humans: the sinking of the unsinkable RMS Titanic in , or the Hindenburg disaster in , when an airship caught fire and crashed. So it's not too hard to believe that a spaceship might cause some Jovian calamity. Within seconds, flames lick the planet. As a blockbuster movie, starring one of those "Chris" actors in superhero flicks Pratt, Evans or Pine — take your pick , this might make a popcorn-pleasing flick.

But in reality? The gas giant plants — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus — are called that because of all the combustible hydrogen in the atmosphere. Could this become an apocalypse? So unless a surplus of oxygen becomes available on Jupiter, the planet is not likely to be destroyed by fire. Another Doomsday scenario not likely to occur is two gas giants, like Saturn and Jupiter, colliding.

While the chance of either planet moving from its usual orbital rotation seems nil, let's pretend for a moment that it happens. The resulting fallout depends on how the hit occurs. Head-on smash-ups could have several results, depending on the speed during impact.

High speeds could destroy both planets, but a slight bump might merge the two together, uniting all their materials into a single, super-sized planet.

Oblique collisions aka side hits , however, offer other outcomes. If the planet cores miss each other, than both Jupiter and Saturn will partly let go of the gaseous envelopes surrounding them. This will mix into space. If the cores hit at an angle, the planets might merge, but will also lose part of their gaseous envelopes. Oblique hits could also possibly change the planets' shape.

One theory about Jupiter and Saturn's formation is that smaller gas giants collided and united, creating new, larger gas giants from Science Focus. Will these two giants ever collide in real life? Beginner Why is looking out into space the same as looking back in time?

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Connect with. If an earth sized planet collides with a gas giant. Or, the planets could be colliding at great speed. Then the same thing will happen. Only difference is that most of the pieces of the destroyed planet will be flung into space as there is greater momentum in the system and hence velocity.