by SYN 20 Replies latest jw experiences
And, in your crank news update for this week, here's a very interesting little article...it seems bogus to me, but the question had to be asked by somebody.
I know that there are a few people on this site who will take this ball and run with it, so to speak, so tell us what you think.
My personal theory is, won't the plutonium on Galileo be dispersed by it's re-entry into the atmosphere long before fission can take place! But, I'm no nuclear physicist!
This is total BS... Jupiter will absorb the probe with less than a fizzle.
If Jupiter was going to ignite, it would have a long time ago. There is simply not enough gravity there to support a fusion reaction. What makes them think something the weighing a few kilograms could possibly affect something large enough to hold 695 earths?
Elsewhere, I tend to agree with you on this one.
If only there was more detailed information available about exactly what will happen when Galileo impacts with Jupiter.
Most likely it will just melt up, like NASA has been saying all along. After all, it is going extremely fast!
I read the above article and the link to how atom bombs are made ... I worked in the nuclear reator business for 17 years of my 25 year engineering career. Some of the points made are interesting, or more like fun pop science ... the rest are, well, I just don't know what to call it:
It may even trigger an on-going fusion reaction in the abundant hydrogen supply of Jupiter, creating a mini-star. We lack the in-depth knowledge on the atmospheric structure of the planet to accurately predict the outcome, yet we push ahead on the chosen path.
This caught my attention. Now that would be novel ... a Star, our Sun, during the day and another at night when we pass Jupiter on our orbit around the Sun. Cool. But, to cause Jupiter to ignite as a star from our little space probe ... now that would be a mighty accomplishment.
Physicists at NASA will undoubtedly tell you the danger is negligible and try and push this question into the realm of conspiracy-thinking. As a physicist, I’ve been trained in the safe application of radiation and I think we need to pay attention here, as we may be overplaying our hand by ignoring this possibility.
When making solid and substantive discussion about science, one should never resort to such argumentation about the motives and attitudes of those who disagree. You can see this style of argumentation used by vitamin and herbal sales people who always put down medical science and the AMA as being in an unholy alliance with the drug companies to "hide" the real cures so they can get rich ... so, right away I am disappointed in the post.
This principle is the principle by which a nuclear power plant works. By ‘catching away’ neutrons the balance point of one-splits-one is kept in-tact. The rest of the free neutrons will crash into water and gives of its energy boiling the water to steam.
This fellow does not understand how nuclear power plants work ... and this statement alone should raise eyebrows. It is the release of heat energy from the fission process that is transferred into the water to boil it to steam. Yes, some heat from free neutrons making their way through the water will give off energy, but that is not the principle method that boils the water. Water in both Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) and Pressurized Watrer Reactors (PWRs) acts as a moderator that SLOWS reactions. It is the chain reaction itself that heats the water to boil and then to steam.
In the bombing of Nagasaki, the Americans used only 7 kilograms of Plutonium. 1.2 kilograms of that went into fission, which gave the explosion a equivalent force of 22 kilotons of TNT.
Watch this statement ... this fellow will later try to argue that only 21.7 grams (only 0.29 - 0.3% of 7 kilograms) will somehow create an explosions 20 times the blast force of bomb dropped on Nagasaki ... now that is magic!
Source: About plutonium bombs
This "source" reference is suspecious because the author of that article trys to argue that a reactor could still explode like a nuclear bomb ... were he truly familiar with reactor physics, he would understand that a nuclear bomb is not just the quantity of weapons grade fissile material, but that it MUST be contained in a certain physical and geometric configuration ... nuclear reactors """by design""" cannot meet that important criteria, and thus are rendered unable to sustain a nuclear explosion.
If we extrapolate the table above linearly, about 18-20 ktons are released per kilogram of Plutonium fully fissioned, then a maxium explosive yield of some 400 ktons could come from 48 pounds or 21.7 kg of Plutonium.
Here is where he argues a bomb 20 times the size of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki by using only 0.03% of the same material. Cool. Why does he argue this? Because he reasons that the atmospheric pressure on Jupiter will delay the nuclear event until it reaches a level that is far more explosive ... and because the reaction has to overcome a greater pressure, when it does explode it will be a really big bomb ... cool ... but there is something he fails to understand ... and we shall see this below ...
Not all of the Plutonium will go of course, the explosive energy will be much lower, but 100 ktons lies well within possibility. In an explosion of that magnitude, what could be the temperature that is reached?
Now, after all his discussion, not all the plutonium will be involved in the reaction, or "will go" as he scientifically puts it ... and now the explosion will be only 100 kilotons instead of 400 kilotons. Cool trick. Why? What happened here? All the argumentation thus far was to prove how 100% efficiency will be achieved, and than we now lose 75% efficiency all of a sudden, simply because not all the Plutonium "WILL GO." Now that is real science.
After only a millionth of a second, the pressure causing the implosion was overcome above Nagasaki. If such an explosion were to take place in the Jovian atmosphere instead of Earth’s, the outside pressure would resist the expansion a lot longer! The chain reaction could continue longer, up to three times as long perhaps, as high as 30-50% fission rate could be achieved instead of 16% and the reaction temperature could shoot up to beyond 100 million degrees.
WOW ... 100 million degrees ... but now we are back to 30-50% fission efficiency ... first only 16%, then 100%, then 25% now another percent ... where is this going?
If Jupiter ignites, it may throw out a portion of its atmosphere in a shockwave as most starting stars do. This starting star however will then be too close for comfort. A portion of that shockwave will then hit Earth too, its results will be beyond imagination. Millions of tons of hot hydrogen will impact the atmosphere hitting it with 1000 km per second. It will result in an ELE category event at best due to intense global aurora and a bombardment of X-rays everywhere that may last for days to weeks. The survivors will be sterile or die from all kinds of radiation-induced diseases.
Oh Paaaaleeeeze ... GIVE ME A BREAK! Jupiter is 1000 times smaller than the Sun and is nearly 11 times farther away than the Sun, but somehow this new little buddy Star called Jupiter is going to wipe out the earth ... stop it, I can't take it anymore ...
THEN ... I looked at another linked article in support of this great science and what did I find? Well, let's just say that h e finally lost me when he started quoting experts in the science of crop circles ... geesh ... I was really disappointed at what otherwise seemed like a fascinating theory. - Jim Whitney
Now that would be novel ... a Star duing the day and another at night during times we pass Jupiter during our orbit. Cool.
It was a novel. Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey was entitled 2010: Odyssey Two. The climax is that Jupiter becomes a star.
This site is the perfect example of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. This fellow takes one physics class in college and thinks he suddenly has discovered the secrets of the universe.
September 21st?
Good, that gives me 12 days to perfect my aluminum foil radiation-and-government-controlled-psychic-blocking skullcap.
Hmmm
Apparently this bonehead thinks that a lack of oxygen will prevent frictional heat from burning up the probe as it enters the Jovian atmosphere.
JYIS.
Wow that was interesting even tho I didn't read all the nuclear physics involved here . I think the best we can do is speculate on the out come of probablities anyway . The event could be catostrophic or might amount to nothing like when the asteroids impacted jupiter a couple of years ago . I think that if jupiter were to explode into a inferno there are other possibilities not mentioned . Jupiter could explode shooting rock masses toward the earth and destoying its moons along the way , what a mess that would be . This will definately be interesting in any event I guess I have no choice but to party like it's 1999 once again .
Cosmos 954, a Soviet satellite powered by a nuclear reactor crashed on Earth in January 24, 1978. It was scattered across a 30-mile-wide, 500-mile-long swath of the Northwest Territory of Canada. No kaboom. Just a radioactive mess to clean up.
http://www.llnl.gov/50th_anniv/decades/1970s.htm
Last time I worked as a nuclear physicist , I noted that the mechanism to initiate a hydrogen chain-reaction nuclear explosion was complex and deliberate. Simple impact or pressure won't do.
Gerry
PS: YOU GO AHEAD AND PLAN FOR THE END OF YOUR LIFE WHILE I LOOK FORWARD TO REST OF MINE. (Rik Bouwmeester)
Gerard --- I don't think I ever heard about the canadian incident . This thing has me thinking the space program has got to be stopped from possibly turning a populated area into some radio active waste land . I didn't even know they used nuclear reactors on board space craft but holy jeeze what if the damn thing exploded in the earths atmosphere like the space shuttle ?
