What would happen if Jupiter were to be torn apart?

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I went to another astrophysics forum for an answer to this question and just cannot believe what I was told by them so I just had to go looking elsewhere for answers.

My question was what would happen to Jupiter, our solar system, and earth if Jupiter were torn apart by a near miss by this hypothetical brown dwarf system that is all the rage these days on YouTube?

Their bottom line answer - not much.

I know only what little astrophysics I've gotten from science-type TV shows about space, but from the little I do know I cannot believe that this can be true!

I was told that the event might cause Jupiter to be a bit brighter, but you'd need a telescope to see it. I was told that there would be little chance of anything impacting earth - even after the debris from the explosion reached the asteroid belt, sending many out of their normal orbits. I was told, "Depending on the exact details of what happens, there could be a devastating change in our orbit, or we could see almost no effect in the near to moderate future. "

How can this be?

How can the destruction of the largest planet in out solar system wind up being pretty much a non-event?

It doesn't make sense to me.

Can anyone verify what I've been told, or tell me what would really happen?

Understand, I'm asking this out of curiosity only. I have watched YouTube videos on this topic, but I spend my time debunking their so-called evidence. Mostly photos of lens flares, sun dogs, and red clouds. I should say I used to debunk them. I gave up because I came to realize that none of those people care about real evidence, science, or logic. They only care about playing at being believers in this stuff. They deny or ignore anything I try to tell them. I guess the truth spoils their fun.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 1,796 • Replies: 23

[+3] - jespah - 11/13/2017I fixed your image width issue.

@Beth Doodle,

Jupiter is a Gas giant

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Well, I guess I came to the wrong place.

I thought that I could get a serious answer, not jokes.

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Saying that Jupiter is a gas giant is a serious answer. Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants, with atmospheres composed of Hydrogen and helium. There's no land there, although there may be metallic hydrogen. So there is nothing to "tear apart."

Youtube is a really poor place to learn anything. There are some good vids there, but by and large, it's a venue for crackpots and BS artists to post their pet "theories." It's the modern, electronic version of reading comic books.

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@Setanta,

Jupiter may be a gas giant, but that is not the same thing as it having no substance to tear apart. Of course it does. Just because it isn't a solid doesn't mean that it's mass is meaningless.

The mass of Jupiter is 1.9 x 1027 kg, or 318 times the mass of Earth. Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive than all of the other planets in our Solar System combined.

From Wikipedia: "Because the mass of Jupiter is so large compared to the other objects in the solar system, the effects of its gravity must be included when calculating satellite trajectories and the precise orbits of other bodies in the solar system, including earth's moon and even pluto."

So that means that all of Jupiter's gas has far-reaching effects - in fact, it effects the orbits of everything else in the entire solar system. Something that is substanceless can't have those kinds of effects.

Suns like ours are also made up of the same hydrogen and helium. Yet it is well known that not only are they responsible for the orbits of everything else their solar system, but we know that suns can be "torn apart". They are known as super-nova. Black holes tear apart and consume suns and any planets accompanying them - including any gas giants like Jupiter.

Gas does not equate to nothingness. So your statement, "there is nothing to 'tear apart'" is completely wrong. If suns can super nova, then gas giants CAN be torn apart. Gravity holds Jupiter together, and gravity can tear it apart. Which is exactly what I'm talking about here - the gravitational mass of a passing dwarf star causing Jupiter to loose it's cohesiveness and be torn apart.

You are implying that gas can't affect other things, but that's like saying the winds (gas) of Hurricane Harvey had no effect on Texas. Mass is mass - whether it is solid, liquid, or gas - and ALL mass affects all other mass.

From http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Force+of+gravity

"The Law of Universal Gravitation"

"Since the gravitational force is experienced by all matter in the universe, from the largest galaxies down to the smallest particles, it is often called universal gravitation."

Note the use of the word "ALL". And note the "down to the smallest particles" part.

Again, gas has mass and is not substanceless as you are implying.

I do not get my education from YouTube. I am a college graduate with two degrees which I earned with honors. I know how to discern the crap that is out there on YouTube.

You must have missed the part of my post where I said I had spent time debunking people's supposed evidence of Niburu. You must also have missed the part where I say that I'm asking this question out of curiosity only.

It doesn't matter if there really is a Niburu or not as far as my question goes. I am asking a legitimate question: What would happen to Jupiter, our solar system, and earth if Jupiter were torn apart by a near miss by a brown dwarf system?

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Jupiter is a Gas giant

To expand on this a bit, you need to think of Jupiter as a clump of liquid mass orbiting the sun. It is very difficult to disrupt the orbit of such things to any large degree. Even if you splash (and it would be more of a splash than a collision) into it with a direct impact the mass just keeps orbiting pretty much where it was.

Remember that the Earth (a rocky body) was impacted by an object the size of Mars and all it did was splash out a Moon. The basic orbit wasn't changed by much.

Of course, all of this depends on just how massive the impacting object might be, and on angle of incidence and speed. It's possible that a super massive object could pass by Jupiter and suck it out of orbit, but the chances of such a precise interaction occurring are beyond tiny.

And then there's the question of just what would happen to the rest of the solar system if Jupiter were somehow dragged away... and while I'm sure it would cause some perturbations in the short term, most orbits are stable, so they should recover pretty much right where they are.

It's all pretty speculative since you haven't defined the "impact" event in any detail, nor the Impactor. For example, if Betelgeuse came flying by the whole solar system would be swept away.

In short, I suspect that the answer you originally got is probably accurate in a very general sense.

Does that help at all?

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@Beth Doodle,

I do beg your pardon, I didn't know that you possessed such sophisticated knowledge, especially in light of your question. I will trouble you no more.

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@Beth Doodle,

There are people at some universities that study gravitational effects of planets in a star system. They can answer your questions about this. I wondered what it would take to set Jupiter into a blazing star. There was an asteroid hit recorded some years back with an incredible yield of nuclear like force, it didn't do anything to Jupiter.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

Of course, all of this depends on just how massive the impacting object might be, and on angle of incidence and speed. It's possible that a super massive object could pass by Jupiter and suck it out of orbit, but the chances of such a precise interaction occurring are beyond tiny.

And then there's the question of just what would happen to the rest of the solar system if Jupiter were somehow dragged away... and while I'm sure it would cause some perturbations in the short term, most orbits are stable, so they should recover pretty much right where they are.

It's all pretty speculative since you haven't defined the "impact" event in any detail, nor the Impactor. For example, if Betelgeuse came flying by the whole solar system would be swept away.

In my original post I specified that the object was a brown dwarf. For the sake of discussion, let's say that this object is of the size shown in this image, which I got from the Wikipedia article on brown dwarfs:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/BrownDwarfComparison-pia12462.jpg

I'm not talking about an impact - I'm talking about a near miss. I'm not expecting Jupiter to be knocked out of orbit, but I would expect it to loose mass. And for the sake of argument, let's say that it's a very near miss that is capable of pulling a significant amount of mass from Jupiter. How much, I cannot say because I don't have the physics background to figure out that sort of thing. Which is why I started this thread in the first place. To get a few questions answered.

Maybe pretend for a moment that I'm writing a movie about this and I've come here to get details for it.

If this helps, let's use this diagram (which I swiped off the Internet) as a reference, but adjust it as you see fit for the distance from Jupiter that would produce a siphoning off of a goodly amount of mass.

EDIT: Sorry for the size of the image, I don't know how to fix that.

https://doowansnewsandevents.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/nibiruorbitbordon.jpg

What I'm looking for is a description of what the impact would be to Jupiter, earth, and the rest of the solar system.

I'd also like to know what this event might look like from earth's perspective and what effects it might have on our planet - orbit perturbation, rotation changes, pole alignment changes, asteroid impacts, etc.

I'm not looking for exact figures, just the sort of thing that a writer would need to know so that they'd be able to guide the special effects department for the spectacular scene that would depict the moment of highest drama in this event - the moment that Jupiter is ripped open and starts spewing it's guts out into space.

And then the info for the scenes from earth where we'd see CNN reporting on it with video and other scenes of people's reactions to what they are seeing in the sky. This would likely change throughout the movie as the various effects reach earth.

No, I'm not writing a movie - LOL. I just thought that it would make it easier to figure out the kind of information I'm looking for.

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@seac,

Quote:

There are people at some universities that study gravitational effects of planets in a star system. They can answer your questions about this. I wondered what it would take to set Jupiter into a blazing star. There was an asteroid hit recorded some years back with an incredible yield of nuclear like force, it didn't do anything to Jupiter.

Actually the website I tried before was a physics forum (the astrophysics sub-forum) for students. They did wind up giving me a lot of interesting and helpful info, but since we are talking about it, I'd like to hear this from a fresh perspective too.

Differing opinions can be valuable.

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@Beth Doodle,

I fixed your image width issue.

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@Beth Doodle,

When objects of near equal size pass each other they have a near equal affect on each other.

Also, Gravity decreases by the inverse square law, so objects have to be very close for their fields to pull material from the other (and even then, they are both equally likely to capture material from each other).

I'm not sure any orbital situation can be imagined in which any object of similar mass to Jupiter would actually remove a significant amount of mass from Jupiter (as you say). But I think there might be situations in which the orbital deflection was sufficient to throw both objects off their original paths by a substantial degree.

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@Beth Doodle,

Beth Doodle wrote:

I'd also like to know what this event might look like from earth's perspective and what effects it might have on our planet - orbit perturbation, rotation changes, pole alignment changes, asteroid impacts, etc.

Jupiter's gravitational effect on the Earth is minute. Remember that Jupiter is on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth once every year, and the Earth races beneath Jupiter (from the perspective of the Sun) every year and we don't notice any effect at all. Satellites don't have to have their orbits adjusted and nothing in the solar system changes appreciably.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

I'm not sure any orbital situation can be imagined in which any object of similar mass to Jupiter would actually remove a significant amount of mass from Jupiter (as you say). But I think there might be situations in which the orbital deflection was sufficient to throw both objects off their original paths by a substantial degree.

This reminded me of a simulation video that I saw about 5 or 6 years ago of a situation in which a similar object passes through our solar system and in the simulation you saw one of our planetary bodies (I don't recall which one) being thrown completely out of the solar system and other planets then shifting in their orbits.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

Jupiter's gravitational effect on the Earth is minute. Remember that Jupiter is on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth once every year, and the Earth races beneath Jupiter (from the perspective of the Sun) every year and we don't notice any effect at all. Satellites don't have to have their orbits adjusted and nothing in the solar system changes appreciably.

This reminded me of something that I had come across during my research so I went and searched it out again.

From Wikipedia on "Jupiter mass":
Because the mass of Jupiter is so large compared to the other objects in the solar system, the effects of its gravity must be included when calculating satellite trajectories and the precise orbits of other bodies in the solar system, including earth's moon and even pluto.

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Let me insert here something that was said in that other forum. Food for thought.

The problem is that too much depends on the actual circumstances of the encounter. For example, if we assume that a brown dwarf passes by Jupiter close enough for Jupiter to come within its Roche limit, there are a number a factors to consider. How fast are their relative speeds? How much more massive is the Brown dwarf than Jupiter? These two have a lot to do with the outcome. They both determine how long Jupiter remains close enough to the brown dwarf to stay inside the Roche limit. A lower relative velocity means they stay close together longer, and a more massive brown dwarf extends the size of the Roche limit so that Jupiter remains inside of it for a longer time.

If the brown dwarf is not very massive and moving quickly, it won't spend long in the vicinity of Jupiter. And while Jupiter will pull apart for the time when the tidal forces are strong enough, once the brown dwarf has passed by, the mutual gravity of its spread out matter will begin to exert itself and try to pull it back together again. Whether or not it is successful or not depends upon how much energy the tidal forces where able to impart to Jupiter. If the spreading material has reached escape velocity, it will continue to spread out, if it hasn't, it will collect back together.

If the brown dwarf is massive and slow, it will have a longer period in which to pull Jupiter apart and there is a greater chance that it will stay pulled apart..

I hadn't yet found that diagram I posted nor the size comparison picture, so they didn't have enough parameters to go by. But if we take that size comparison and the diagram into account (adjusting for a close miss with Jupiter) when considering what this poster said, what are your opinions on what would happen?

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Let me add a few more quotes from the other forum too.

Quote:

If a brown dwarf (or larger object) got very close to the planet (it doesn't even need to impact it), the planet would be ripped apart into a large cloud of gas and dust from tidal forces.

Quote:

But the odds of a near miss are higher than a contact. A brown dwarf could change the orbit. Jupiter's orbit will change the orbits of all other planets. A brown dwarf would also throw a lot of asteroids into new orbits.

Quote:

I'd expect something resembling a comet's tail to appear, though I don't know how large it would appear or how bright.

Also, this object is supposed to be dragging a large cloud of iron oxide debris with it, So much that it is supposed to have the appearance of having wings.

http://www.bobfletcherinvestigations.com/uploads/3/7/6/4/37643205/9323461.png?463

How much would that cloud of debris affect things?

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I'd also like to ask about the visibility of this object from earth.

This is what Wikipedias says about the visibility of a brown dwarf:

Quote:

However, such objects were hard to find as they emit almost no visible light. Their strongest emissions are in the infrared (IR) spectrum

But we know that objects don't have to emit their own light in order to be seen. We see the other planets in our solar system because of light reflected from the sun. We also need to consider the composition, since some substances reflect differing amounts of light.

So, would this object be seen from earth too via reflected light? Considering that it is supposed to be shrouded in a cloud of iron oxide, how would that affect the visibility?

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@Beth Doodle,

The answers to all of the questions you are asking, all start with "It depends..." and they depend on a whole lot of variables which you seem to be expanding rather than narrowing, so I don't see how we're going to arrive at anything meaningful.

Are you trying to figure out a set of conditions which lead to the result you describe, or are you trying to understand the result of a certain set of conditions?

Is this question merely an academic exercise, or are you trying to write a science fiction novel in which this happens, or are you trying to pack for doomsday?

1 Reply

What would happen if Jupiter were to be torn apart?

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