what would happen if a incendiary device was launched into jupiter? a new sun,destruction of the solar system?
90509
The atmosphere of Jupiter would most likely destroy it before it could do damage. If it did hit the solid core of Jupiter and did enough damage to destroy it, we would have a second asteroid belt. Nothing major, though.
162899
Jupiter does produce energy but not the same way that the Sun does.  Jupiter is slowly cooling off and that process produces thermal radiation.  The Sun is different because their are nuclear fusion reactions in its core.\n\nJupiter is not massive enough for gravity in its core to create the pressues needed for nuclear fusion reactions.\n\nThe sun is massive enough however.  Any object less than roughly 13 Jupiter masses can not produce its own energy by any fusion reaction.  Objects less that roughly 75 Jupiter masses can produce energy through minor nuclear reactions such as deuterium burning and lithium burning but can't fuse together hydrogen atoms like the Sun does.  these object are called brown dwarfs.\n\nNow Jupiter actually does radiate more energy than it receives from the sun because it is still releasing energy created long ago when it first formed.
530218
Scientists (Astronomists) have a pretty good idea about the creation of the solar system and its eventual destruction.  If the sun were to turn into a red giant and supernova, that would obliterate the earth as the sun would engulf the inner planets.  Most scientists think it unlikey, and the prevailing theories have the sun running out of hydrogen to convert into helium, thus fizzling out.  In this case, the earth would just freeze, killing most life, except possibly some spores and viruses that can take temperatures near absolute zero (-273 C).
344795
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and is the largest one in the solar system. If Jupiter were hollow, more than one thousand Earths could fit inside. It also contains more matter than all of the other planets combined. It has a mass of 1.9 x 1027 kg and is 142,800 kilometers (88,736 miles) across the equator. Jupiter possesses 28 known satellites, four of which - Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io - were observed by Galileo as long ago as 1610. Another 12 satellites have been recently discovered and given provisional designators until they are officially confirmed and named. There is a ring system, but it is very faint and is totally invisible from the Earth. (The rings were discovered in 1979 by Voyager 1.) The atmosphere is very deep, perhaps comprising the whole planet, and is somewhat like the Sun. It is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of methane, ammonia, water vapor and other compounds. At great depths within Jupiter, the pressure is so great that the hydrogen atoms are broken up and the electrons are freed so that the resulting atoms consist of bare protons. This produces a state in which the hydrogen becomes metallic. \nColorful latitudinal bands, atmospheric clouds and storms illustrate Jupiter's dynamic weather systems. The cloud patterns change within hours or days. The Great Red Spot is a complex storm moving in a counter-clockwise direction. At the outer edge, material appears to rotate in four to six days; near the center, motions are small and nearly random in direction. An array of other smaller storms and eddies can be found through out the banded clouds. \n\nAuroral emissions, similar to Earth's northern lights, were observed in the polar regions of Jupiter. The auroral emissions appear to be related to material from Io that spirals along magnetic field lines to fall into Jupiter's atmosphere. Cloud-top lightning bolts, similar to superbolts in Earth's high atmosphere, were also observed.
1077025
It won't really matter as the sun will become a red giant just before it dies, enveloping most if not all the inner planets. When it does actually die it will go nova, blowing off most of its outer layers. This will most likely destroy all the inner planets that survived the red giant phase and eject the outer planets from our solar system (if it doesn't destroy them as well). \n\nLife on Earth can in no way survive this. After all this has finished our sun will most likely become what is known as a white dwarf  and will have about half it's current mass. Gravity will still exist but at half its current force. Any planets that stayed in orbit during the violence of our sun's nova would probably slowly increase its orbit until it just wanders off into space.\n\nI wouldn't worry about this too much as we've got abut 4 billion years to wait, give or take a couple million years.
460102
Depends on the size of the comet, many just disintegrate on the atmosphere. A really big one could create:\nShift in the orbit, heat from the explosion, smoke and dust from the explosion covering the Sun. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from shift in magnetic field due to orbit shift. Basically extinction of many forms of life, possibly even human.
62444
With no solid surface for either of these planets, an 'earth'quake would not happen in the traditional sense.  I am sure that there must be some incredible turbulence throughout the entire fluidic interior of the planets, and especial with Jupiter, the core may be solid and made up of metallic hydrogen.  I expect when comet Schumaker-Levy 9 slammed in to Jupiter, it must have set of some tremendous shock waves, but the planet aborbed it with barely a flinch.
351909
You would rip a hole in the time space continuum...  \nIf you hit an egg with a  rod it explodes and you have to clean up...
274812
i would grab the closest lasar gun and start shooting...i mean your the hero here... you can't die...espesailly if your the last on left...you have to do it to save the human race...without you we are all doomed...a big dramatic ending would be if you set the self destruct...then excape in the nick of time...speaking of which why would anyone make a self destruct button anways...i mean if there is a self destruct wouldn't that mean that you are carriering enough explosives just to blow you own ship up...that most likely can not be used on your enemy...well anyways...you can do it...we are all counting on you\n\nand to answer the above question...spacepeoplepc...duh
487630
ok there are solar flares that reach us but earth's magnetic field sort of protects us.\nso what we need is a combo of some sort\nso how about we go for\nEarth's magnetic pole flipping\nSolar flare(big) or solar increase\nMeteor\nComet\nput them all in the blender and mix\n\nso at the same time the magnetic pole flips\nthe field will drop to zero(not sure on how long)\nat this time a solar flare hits us making the entire sky look like the northern lights(very beautiful at sun set)\nbecause the atmosphere starts to ionize.\nand on the night side a comet heading straight for earth\nbut the comet is over taken by a large meteor that smashes the comet creating a lot of small comets of ice and rock and one mostly untouched meteor about 150-200km or larger in diameter. the meteor can crash in the middle of the pacific right on top of hawaii taking it out and creating a large tsunami that kills most of the people in the costal areas. then the ice covered meteors from the comet will at some time over the next 48 hours end up taking out most of the major urban centers of the world and the farms as well.\nalso the ensuing earthquakes can completely teraform the landscape in to a more mountainous terrain.\nand the electro magnetic serge caused by the solar flare launches all of the armaments across the globe at random GPS co-ordinates.(nuklear, chemical, biological, ETC...)\n\nhows that for a disaster waiting to happen.
7997
The result is there for all of us to see. The stars and other celestial objects are the result of many such nuclear reactions. The sun is a big fusion reactor. Beginning with the lightest elements like helium and hydrogen the process of fusion gives rise to heavier and heavier elements. Some times stars are overcome by their own mass and implode to become a black hole or explode as a supernova releasing enormous amounts of matter and energy into space. In comparison the worlds biggest nuclear bomb will appear like a pop-gun. Will the sun implode or explode. Luckily  - no. But over time it will swell into what is called a red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus. But I think by the time that happens we would have colonised Mars!
251965
The bullet would disintegrate in the Earth's atmosphere.\nExplode?  From a bullet?  Uh, no.
146404
Ganymede. It orbits Jupiter.
515380
Your body would be pulled in every direction, though not really "exploding", that's a pretty good approximation of what would happen. If that didn't happen & you had oxygen, you would freeze to death. Or you would die from radiation(which is what would happen with the spacesuit, making the moon landing a farce).\n\nSpace kills, man.
813735
the nearest star passing the solar system is barnard's star passing the solar system in a distance larger than 3 lightyears no earlier than 10.000 years in the future .. soo  no star in sight...\n\na dark object the size of jupiter ..hmm... \nthe direct gravitational influence of ALL yet known planets within the solar system can't match up with the suns gravitational force.\nThe whole system must have been stable since more than a billion years now (4 billion ?). A few years ago all planets where in a row and some people claimed we are about to have severe floodings cause of that.  nothing happens. \n\nif such a planet would appear it has loooooots of space to run through the system without hitting anything and it must come with the correct speed and the correct vector to get caught in an orbit. the chances are very very small that this is the case.\n\nif such a planet would cross near the earth i bet it would cross so fast that you are not even able to take out your camera to make a photo of it. And depending on simple newtonian mechanics the earth mass is high enough to have such a momentum that no major trajectory change should occur.\n\nwhat possibly happens is, that a jupiter sized mass running through the system would change trajectories of a few asteroids which may cross the planets path.\nthose asteroids may cause a concern, but as already mentioned above SPACE is huuughe the solar system has alot of it and the chances that such an asteroid hits our tiny blue pearl are really really small. \nIf you take a look at Nasa's NEO website you may freak out for having so many asteroids nearby but from statistics .. we get hit approx. every 300.000 years  soo .. <shrug>...  space is called space cause its basically empty space\n\nand if that is not enough\nthe oldest objects in space are 'globular clusters' like M13 for example. Those clusters are made of up to more than 100.000 stars which orbit each other in a relative small section of space without colliding since billions of years. If these objects exists since such a long time without destroying themselves in collisions, why then should a small body like jupiter should mess up our solar system which appears to be stable since at least 1 or 2 billion years ?\n\nchances are better to win the lottery, don't you think ?  ;-)
1022849
Fusion mixed with a dirty bomb. So, a hydrogen bomb that liberates lots and lots of radiation. Anything small would be bad also, only because it would be harder to detect, and counter.
1142164
Jupiter's internal energy is  the release of heat trapped when it formed