the best way to explore a new world is
to land on it that's why humans has sent
spacecraft to the moon Venus Mars
Saturn's moon Titan and more but there
are a few places in the solar system we
will never understand as well as we'd
like one of them is Jupiter Jupiter is
made of mostly hydrogen and helium gas
so trying to land on it would be like
trying to land on a cloud here on earth
there's no outer crust to break your
fall on Jupiter just an endless stretch
of atmosphere the big question then is
could you fall through one end of
Jupiter and out the other it turns out
you wouldn't even make it halfway first
things first
Jupiter's atmosphere has no oxygen so
make sure you bring plenty with you to
breathe the next problem is the
scorching temperatures so pack an
air-conditioner now you're ready for a
journey of epic proportions for scale
here's how many Earth's you could stack
from Jupiter's Center as you enter the
top of the atmosphere you're traveling
at 110,000 miles per hour under the pole
of Jupiter's gravity but brace yourself
you'll quickly hit the denser atmosphere
below which will hit you like a wall it
won't be enough to stop you though after
about three minutes you'll reach the
cloud tops a hundred and fifty five
miles down here you'll experience the
full brunt of Jupiter's rotation jupiter
is actually the fastest rotating planet
in our solar system one day lasts about
nine and a half earth hours this creates
powerful winds that can whip around the
planet at more than 300 miles per hour
about 75 miles below the clouds you
reach the limit of human exploration
Galileo probe made it this far when it
dove into Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995
it only lasted fifty eight minutes
before losing contact and was eventually
destroyed by the crushing pressure down
here the pressure is nearly 100 times
what it is on Earth's surface
and you won't be able to see anything so
you'll have to rely on instruments to
explore your surroundings by 430 miles
down the pressure is 1150 times higher
you might be able to survive down here
if you were in a spacecraft built like
the Trieste submarine the deepest diving
submarine on earth any deeper and the
pressure in the temperature will be too
great for the spacecraft to endure
however let's say that you could find a
way to descend even further you will
uncover some of Jupiter's grandest
mysteries but sadly you'll have no way
to tell anyone
Jupiter's deep atmosphere absorbs radio
waves so you'll be shut off from the
outside world unable to communicate once
you've reached 2,500 miles down the
temperature is 6100 degrees Fahrenheit
that's hot enough to melt tungsten the
metal with the highest melting point in
the universe at this point you will have
been falling for at least 12 hours and
you won't even be halfway through at
13,000 miles down you'll reach Jupiter's
innermost layer here the pressure is 2
million times stronger than that of
Earth's surface and the temperature is
hotter than the surface of the Sun these
conditions are so extreme that they
change the chemistry of hydrogen around
you hydrogen molecules are forced so
close together that their electrons
break loose forming an unusual substance
called metallic hydrogen metallic
hydrogen is highly reflective so if you
tried using lights to see down there
would be impossible and it's as dense as
a rock
so as you travel deeper the buoyancy
force from the metallic hydrogen
counteracts gravity's downward pull
eventually that buoyancy will shoot you
back up until gravity pulls you right
back down it's sort of like a yo-yo and
when those two forces equal you'll be
left free floating in mid Jupiter unable
to move up or down and no way of escape
it suffice it to say trying to land on
Jupiter
is a bad idea we may never see what's
beneath those majestic clouds but we can
still study and admire this mysterious
planet from afar
you