The main problem with giant planet explosion is that people think that it is ridicules before considering arguments. So they don't consider arguments and don't find that they are much more convincing than they thought a priori. The same problem is with strong AGI.
There are three facts which you need to know in the first place:
1) According to the findings, published in the prestigious journal Physical review, thermonuclear detonation (ie explosion), of a planet could happened at normal pressure by deuterium fusion reaction D + D, provided that the concentration of deuterium is more than 1 to 300. (relative to normal hydrogen). (Necessary conditions for the initiation and propagation of nuclear detonation waves in plane atmospheres ". Tomas Weaver and A. Wood, Physical review 20 - 1 Jule 1979,
www.lhcdefense.org/pdf/LHC%
20 -% 20Sancho % 20v.% 20Doe% 20 -% 20Atmosphere% 20Ignition% 20 -% 202% 20 -% 20Wood_AtmIgnition-1.pdf) Recently published refutation of possible explosion of Saturn is low quality, because it not even mention that the reaction of detonation of deuterium is possible.(“Project Lucifer: Will Cassini Turn Saturn into a Second Sun?”
www.universetoday.com/2008/07/24/project...a-second-sun-part-1/
)
2) Conducted in the late 90's measurements (lander of Galileo) showed that the concentration of deuterium in the upper layers of Jupiter is 1 in 1600, that is only five (5) times smaller than the minimum required level for detonation.
3) It was found that deuterium isotope separation easily happens in natural processes, and in particular that the concentration of heavy gases (such as helium) is increasing as the deepening of the bowels of giant planets. And it is most likely true for deuterium. Consequently, in the bowels of the giant planets may be sufficient concentrations of deuterium for detonation. And to reach these depths is not difficult, because the planet is liquid and to initiate the explosion could be enough powerful nuclear bomb. That is the technology of explosion of the giant planets, in principle, is reachable for our civilization now..
Finally, if somehow all the deuterium in the depths of Jupiter enter into the reaction, then it will emit the energy equivalent of about 3000 years of luminescence of the Sun during a few tens of seconds. That is enough to disrupt the Earth's atmosphere and cut the upper few kilometers of soil, and destroy all future human colonies in the Solar system. Thus, the explosion of the giant planets, can be a powerful Doomsday Machine suitable for blackmail the entire civilization.
And if such weapons would be created, there is the risk of their use.
Now we should look on the risk in more details.
Where are some events which are very improbable, but which consequence could be infinitely large (e.g. black holes on LHC). Possibility of nuclear ignition of self-containing fusion reaction in giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn which could lead to the explosion of the planet, is one of them.
Several considerations suggest that an artificial explosion of the giant planets is possible. Inside the giant planets is thermonuclear fuel under high pressure and at high density. This density for certain substances is above (except water, perhaps) than the density of these substances on Earth. Large quantities of the substance would not have fly away from reaction zone long enough for large energy emission. This fuel has never been involved in combustion reactions, and it remained easy combustible components, namely, deuterium, helium-3 and lithium (and may be boron), which have burned at all in the stars. In addition, the subsoil giant planets contain fuel for reactions, which may prompt an explosive fire - namely, the tri-helium reaction (3 He 4 = C12) and for reactions to the accession of hydrogen to oxygen, which, however, required to start them much higher temperature. Substance in the bowels of the giant planets is in degenerate matter (in form of metal ocean), just as the substance of white dwarfs, which regularly takes place explosive thermonuclear burning in the form of helium flashes and the flashes of the first type of supernova.
The more opaque is environment, the greater are the chances for the reaction in it, as less is energy loss, but in the bowels of the giant planets there are many impurities and lower transparency can be expected. Gravitational differentiation and chemical reactions can lead to the allocation of areas within the planet which are more suitable to run the reaction in its initial stages.
The stronger will be an explosion of fuse, the greater will be amount of the initial field of burning, and the more likely that the response would be self-sustaining, as the energy loss will be smaller and the number of reaction substances and reaction times greater. It can be assumed that if at sufficiently powerful fuse the reaction will became self-sustaining.
Recently Galileo spacecraft was drawn in the Jupiter. Galileo has nuclear pellets with plutonium-238 which under some assumption could undergo chain reaction and lead to nuclear explosion. It is interesting to understand if it could lead to the explosion of giant planet. Spacecraft Cassini may soon enter Saturn with unknown consequences. In the future deliberate ignition of giant planet may become a mean of space war. Such event could sterilize entire Solar system.
The purpose of the given article is to put correct questions which would help us to prove, that explosion of Jupiter and other giants planets as a result of human activity is impossible.
Sense of such statement of the question is in the following. We will admit, that in one city the nuclear station is under construction. Citizens of the city know it, and they also know that nuclear stations sometimes blow up. They have enough this knowledge, that they could and had the legal right to demand the proved proofs of safety of the given project. The care of the proof of safety of the project lies not on citizens of the city, but on its designers. At the same time citizens have the right to set not necessarily technically competent questions in essence: whether the reactor is of Chernobyl type is used at the station, how spent nuclear fuel will be stored, what will be if the reactor will be attacked by terrorists, what will be if the plane crashes in it etc. Possibly, some of these questions will be unexpected for designers, and it should be found new answers and engineering solutions.
Definitely, I do not possess sufficient technical qualification to prove the possibility and, especially, impossibility of giant planet explosion. I shall notice that the proof of impossibility is always more difficult thing, as it should touch all possible versions.
Therefore I will be focused on simpler problem: I will collect all those arguments which speak to us about an explosion possibility.
Scientific basis for our study could be found in the article “Necessary conditions for the initiation and propagation of nuclear detonation waves in plane atmospheres”. Tomas Weaver and A. Wood, Physical review 20 – 1 Jule 1979,
www.lhcdefense.org/pdf/LHC%20-%20Sancho%...od_AtmIgnition-1.pdf
This article rejected the possibility of extending the thermonuclear detonation in the Earth's atmosphere and in Earth's oceans because of balance of the loss of radiation (one that does not exclude the possibility of reactions, which take little space: say, small deposit of heavy ice on the ocean floor, comparing with the amount of earthly matter - but it's enough to disastrous consequences and human extinction.)
There it is said: “We, therefore, conclude that thermonuclear-detonation waves cannot propagate in the ter¬restrial ocean by any mechanism by an astronom¬ically large margin.
It is worth noting, in conclusion, that the susceptability to thermonuclear detonation of a large body of hydrogenous material is an ex¬ceedingly sensitive function of its isotopic com¬position, and, specifically, to the deuterium atom fraction, as is implicit in the discussion just preceding. If, for instance, the terrestrial oceans contained deuterium at any atom fraction greater than 1:300 (instead of the actual value of 1: 6000), the ocean could propagate an equilibrium thermonuclear detonation wave at a temperature £2 keV (although a fantastic 1030 ergs—2 x 107 MT, or the total amount of solar energy incident on the Earth for a two-week period—would be required to initiate such a detonation at a deuter¬ium concentration of 1: 300). Now a non-neg-ligible fraction of the matter in our own galaxy exists at temperatures much less than 300 °K, i.e., the gas-giant planets of our stellar system, nebulas, etc. Furthermore, it is well known that thermodynamically-governed isotopic fractionation ever more strongly favors higher relative concentration of deuterium as the temperature decreases, e.g., the D:H concentration ratio in the ~102 ? Great Nebula in Orion is about 1:200.45 Finally, orbital velocities of matter about the galactic center of mass are of the order of 3 x 107 cm /sec at our distance from the galactic core.
It is thus quite conceivable that hydrogenous matter (e.go, CH4, NH3, H2O, or just H2) rela¬tively rich in deuterium (1 at. %) could accumu¬late at its normal, zero-pressure density in substantial thicknesses or planetary surfaces, and such layering might even be a fairly common feature of the colder, gas-giant planets. If thereby highly enriched in deuterium (10 at. %), thermo¬nuclear detonation of such layers could be initiated artificially with attainable nuclear ex¬plosives. Even with deuterium atom fractions approaching 0.3 at. % (less than that observed over multiparsec scales in Orion), however, such layers might be initiated into propagating thermo¬nuclear detonation by the impact of large (diam 102 m), ultra-high velocity (^?? 107 cm/sec) meteors or comets originating from nearer the galactic center. Such events, though exceedingly rare, would be spectacularly visible on distance scales of many parsecs.” (Note that these computations are made for flat atmospheres, under the assumption that the balance will establish between radiated energy in space and energy created during the reaction, while we are talking about initiating of the explosion inside giant planet, where the emit energy will remain within it, until the planet will not be destroyed. So to start the reaction will be sufficient much lower concentrations of deuterium.)
The first main objection to the possible explosion of giant planets is the fact that the so-called « Teller’s Simple Super» does not work. “Simple super” is the first draft of the hydrogen bomb, which consisted in joining the tube with liquid deuterium to the atomic bomb, so that the explosion of the atomic bomb would detonate deuterium. But it turned out that the detonation wave does not extend the tube because of the large losses of radiation, which are growing even while increasing the size of the device through a Compton scattering. After several years of experiments in the Soviet Union and the United States in the late 1940's this design abandoned in favor of the scheme with the implosion compression of the tube casing by radiation.
So is the situation based on declassified sources. But we cannot be sure that all information on this sensitive issue is declassified. On the other hand, let’’s see who has written articles on the detonation of the atmosphere, from which is the quotation above. They are Thomas Weaver and Lowell Wood. About Wood Wikipedia says follows: “The initial focus of the strategic defense initiative was a nuclear explosion-powered X-ray laser designed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by a scientist named Peter L. Hagelstein who worked with a team called 'O Group', doing much of the work in the late 1970s and early 1980s. O Group was headed by physicist Lowell Wood, a protégé and friend of Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
So what we get (certainly at the level of conspiracy theories, so it is only with certain probability): We can certainly argue that Teller was the best experienced person in the world regarding the question of possibility to create Teller’’s Simple Super. And his friend and protege Wood, was probably aware of the knowledges of Teller. In doing so, in his article on the detonation atmospheres Wood actually argues that the Simple Super is possible! (When writes: « If thereby highly enriched in deuterium (10 at. %), thermo¬nuclear detonation of such layers could be initiated artificially with attainable nuclear ex¬plosives»). And while he makes no precise calculations (because it is classified information), the fact that he spoke with such certainty about it, suggests that such computations were made and that the minimum conditions to start the reaction had been found. And the only way to publish it in the press was to speak about this on an example of atmospheres of distant planets.
see more in:
www.scribd.com/doc/8299748/
"The-possibility-of-artificial-fusion-explosion-of-giants-planets-and-other-objects-of-Solar-system"
