🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct27.045418.5784@rvgs.vak12ed.edu>, abond@rvgs.vak12ed.edu (Andrew H. Bond) writes:
> 	This topic has probably been discussed to death I have
> never seen anything about it here:

Yup, here and sci.astro.  Not much recently, though.

Your posting uses the words "little" and "large numbers" in funny ways...

> 	In my astronomy class we learned that Jupiter could
> have been a twin star to the sun if only it were a little
> bigger, and that it's size prevented spontaneous ignition. 

Like maybe 100 times bigger.  Ardent students of stellar evolution
will provide a more accurate number.  Jupiter, at 2E27 kg, is .001
solar mass; I believe something closer to 0.1 is needed for ignition.
Stein?  Dave C?

> What
> would happen if a large number of thermonuclear weapons were
> used to ignite Jupiter? 

Short answer: "Forget it."  Long answer: "Depends on what you mean by
`large,' but you really want to deliver your energy to the core, not
the outer atmosphere;  how do you plan to do that?"

You know how sometimes the energy driving a hurricane is compared to
umpty-ump hydrogen bombs?  You know how Jupiter has this one big red
hurricane in its southern hemisphere that's much bigger than the
planet Earth?  How much energy is involved in that?  (Rhetorical
questions all.)

Non-rhetorical question:  Do you really think that setting off
hundreds, or thousands, or millions of bombs in Jupiter's atmosphere
can cause anything more than a small sneeze?

I encourage and applaud your speculative imagination, but it's useful
to get some quantitative grasp of a situation too.

Engineer of Hijacked Train:      Bill Higgins
"Is this a holdup?"                 
                                 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Masked Gunman:                      
(Hesitates, looks at partner,    Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL.BITNET
looks at engineer again)         SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43011::HIGGINS
"It's a science experiment!"     Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV