Thread: Can Jupiter become a star?

Hi,First off, I'm not an expert in any science field related to astronomy or space. I just like to read and watch videos about this subject.I've been watching an old documentary done by the BBC about universe. Its made of many episodes, one of the them was about the gas giants.They said that Jupiter atmosphere is composed of clouds of Hydrogen and Helium gas and that the planet gives out twice as much energy as it receives from the sun suggesting that its core should be very hot. Scientists now believe that in its core the gases are compressed until they become a metallic liquid. This hot core creates the power house that drives the high speed winds on its surface and creates the enormous magnetic field of the planet. So here's where a strange idea blazed in my head. Could Jupiter be A primordial level in star formation? Is it possible that in this a very hot and compressed core becomes more hot and dense where it burst out into a star, like our sun? Is there any basic factors that should exist in the star forming process that ultimately does not exist here and thus rejects the whole idea?Thanks for reading anyway.

I would think that this is possible after it collects enough mass to go critical. However, this will have to happen before Sol dies, as in the red giant phase it could strip away mass from Jupiter.

Jupiter is getting there, but still has a ways to go. It is still capturing big material as it did last week, but is there enough local matter to get it to turn on?

True, but every time we cross the galactic plane there are unfathomable gravitational disturbances which astronomers think can disturb the Kuiper Belt and the Ort Cloud. This keeps things moving. I wonder what the effects on Earth would be if our solar system became binary?

Interesting question. Not sure if anyone has modeled this. I don’t really know but I can dream can’t I? The asteroid belt would be absorbed. Mars would be captured by the new sun, its outer surface burned off to the core, resembling Mercury. Earth’s atmosphere would blow off absorbed by the Ice Giants or freeze into comets. We’d lose our plate tectonics, and look a lot like Venus. The outer planets would be thrown off their current trajectories and reassemble into who knows what. It’d be fire a fury for awhile. Inevitably the two suns would be spinning around each other with increasing velocity, possibly throwing Earth and Venus into outer orbits? Perhaps the Kuiper Belt would accrete to the planetoid level. If we’d have any chance at all we be watching all this from Titan.

Or better yet from outside the solar system! I would expect Saturn would boil off to something perhaps Mars-like orbiting the new star. Unlike the 2010, the solar system would have no survivors!

I would think the better question might be...


Why did Jupiter NOT become a star when this solar system was formed?

Not hot enough? If not, what does it take to ignite?

Too much disturbance (gravitational pull) from nearby giant planets?

I don't see the 'situation' for Jupiter changing much in the new few thousand(million) years, if it hasn't already. Why would it? Sol has a long way to go (time-wise) to get to a stage where its heat would have an effect on Jupiter.


an interesting article...along these lines...regarding Jupiter and its effect on our solar system... appears here...


http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05...em/#more-14032

Well we weren't planning any evacuations... All hypothetical.

Lol

Saturn would boil off ..... makes sense