Through and through

ryan

That guy
Joined
Feb 23, 2008
Messages
1,603
Reaction score
4
Points
0
Location
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Now this is very theoretical. Could a object not neescariely a manned spacecraft but an object none the less go through gas planets like Jupiter, Saturn or Neptune.
Discard the countless amount of gravity pull down.
Is it also possible to go through maybe a star at any lifetime of its cycle.
Again discarding the gravity pull down.
 
Now kids, remember, don't drink and post...
 
Stars: Doubtful. It would get melted.

Gas giants: Doubtful. It would get crushed.
 
Ryan, as massive as Jupiter is, deep in its huge, stormy atmosphere the gases are compressed into a liquid and even deeper, a solid. You can't fly through that with a conventional spacecraft in normal space (even by sci fi liberties). Gas giants are definitely not balloons.

As for a star, yes, in Star Wars you have the Sun Crusher :D
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sun_Crusher
 
Stars: Doubtful. It would get melted.
Superman would disagree. :shifty:

But in all seriousness, OP, it's impossible by current or foreseeable means. Honestly not sure what you were expecting. :shrug:
 
I may point out i did say an object it could be the most indesructable thing.
I also said gravity aside.
Neglecting gravity, you have no gas giant or star. But sure, if the object were completely indestructible, then it could do anything, unless it hit an indestructible wall, in which case it's another variation of the irresistible force paradox. Maybe then the entire universe would explode, or turn into a pink frosted cupcake, or who knows. If the impossible is considered, the topic no longer pertains to reality, so logical analysis is superfluous.
 
As for a star, yes, in Star Wars you have the Sun Crusher :D
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sun_Crusher
The Sun Crusher went into a gas giant and survived, not a star (no idea why they didn't put it in a star, but w/e)

Technically it was destroyed by going into a star...one which just happened to be in the "black hole" phase of its life, in the Maw...


Yeah, I just earned a bunch of geek points.
 
Oh yes I remember it being deactivated and hidden away, then recovered by Jedi powers. Not much else, as the last time I touched Star Wars was in my elementary school days.

I "degenerated" to atmospheric flight rapidly after that :D
 
To actually be able to blast right through a planet/star/cupcake etc., the indestructible object would have to be traveling at one heck of a speed to be able to have enough energy left to make it through the atmosphere?

I'm thinking of how far Shoemaker-Levy got through Jupiter, and that was a huge great comet from the outer solar-system.
 
Someone do a computer simulation of the USS Enterprise hitting a planet at Warp 9. You know, for the "bullet passes through watermelon" effect.

I think massive destruction would ensue, but no passing through the planet.

Unless... the object passing through was some sort of radiation or atom that can't be stopped by anything else. Submolecular penetrator weapons. Interesting.
 
Neglecting gravity, you have no gas giant or star. But sure, if the object were completely indestructible, then it could do anything, unless it hit an indestructible wall, in which case it's another variation of the irresistible force paradox. Maybe then the entire universe would explode, or turn into a pink frosted cupcake, or who knows. If the impossible is considered, the topic no longer pertains to reality, so logical analysis is superfluous.

The monolith did it to Jupiter with no problems.... :lol:

Izack is right though. If you neglect Physics then the question becomes pointless.
 
Stars: Doubtful. It would get melted.

Gas giants: Doubtful. It would get crushed.

It would pretty much be Both: Vaporised and Crushed.

Izack is right though. If you neglect Physics then the question becomes pointless.

Aw, aren't we allowed to include a smidgeon of handwavium? :P

For example, if you had some sort of indestructable material, it would made sense for it to simply bounce off another object made of indestructable material, since both objects are indestructable, yet momentum has to be conserved.

We can't neglect gravity though, because without it, everything falls apart. So we can really take two journeys to the core of a gas giant: one is deorbiting a spacecraft into the atmosphere, the other is to stand some distance away, and then use a powerful propulsion system to impart a large velocity to the spacecraft, in a direction that passes directly through the gas giant.

The first example leads to the vessel slowing down in the atmosphere and slowly sinking to the core, or near to the core.

The second example leads to a very violent deceleration as drag from the atmosphere, mantle and core. In reality throwing something at a gas giant like that would cause it to disentegrate rapidly, but since we have an indestructable spacecraft, all this would achieve is disruption of the atmosphere as the kinetic energy is imparted to it from the vessel.

Theoretically you could achieve a large amount of disruption to the planet, if the vessel was travelling at an extremely high relativistic velocity. At this stage though, the velocity would be high enough that the travel time within the planet would be too short to impart any good deal of energy to it, and the spacecraft may indeed fly through, "melting" its way through with its high velocity.

However just because you have an indestructable material, does not mean you have an indestructable crew. They would be cooked by the hull, unless of course the indestructable material was also a perfect insulator. And in the second and third examples they would likely encounter such great accelerations as to be turned into something with the consistency of marmite...

Nonsense sure, but a fun thought experiment nontheless.
 
Someone do a computer simulation of the USS Enterprise hitting a planet at Warp 9. You know, for the "bullet passes through watermelon" effect.

I think massive destruction would ensue, but no passing through the planet.

You don't even need warp 9. Anything around half light speed would be enough to cause significant destruction to a city. Once you have the power to lob projectiles at a good chunk of c you don't need anything fancy.
Just look at Kinetic Kill vehicles as a very simple example.
 
:lol:

Anyway, T.Neo, what you are saying is that if the object flies at the gas giant/star fast enough, it can go out on the other side?

Of course, something can dig a tunnel through the Earth if it goes fast enough...
 
In theory, if you had something that was indestructable.

If, by reaching the core it still had enough energy to be at escape velocity upon coming out the other side, sure...

Of course, we're talking a lot of disruption to the planet here... if you tried to do that to Earth, for example, you would incur planetary ecocide many times over.
 
T.Neo said:
In theory, if you had something that was indestructable.

Or very very strong.

T.Neo said:
Of course, we're talking a lot of disruption to the planet here... if you tried to do that to Earth, for example, you would incur planetary ecocide many times over.

Hmm... if by "planetary ecocide" you mean "rip out half the planet and leave the other with a huge hole in it" then sure, it's planetary ecocide...
 
what your asking could hardly be done by a lump of matter, in a sun it would be "bullied into producing nuclear fission/fusion" and in a gas giant it would be crushed to mugh greater densities than we can imagine!

imagine then doing with with a structure, it would most definatley be destroyed, unless you could make it out of something with an incredibly strong nuclear force holding it together, preventing deformation or nuclear reaction (btw, thats impossible)
 
Or very very strong.
No, indestructible.

The energies and pressures in question are so high that no conceivable real material could survive the journey.
 
Back
Top