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New images of Jupiter

(www.missionjuno.swri.edu)
428 points 0xFACEFEED | 4 comments | 06 Nov 24 07:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.435s | source
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sidcool ◴[06 Nov 24 09:16 UTC] No.42058439[source]▶
It's so scary! All those swirls are like planet size hurricanes. Had Jupiter been bigger, it would have been a star, and life on earth would not have existed. Gives me chills.
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1. lbltavares ◴[06 Nov 24 10:02 UTC] No.42059062[source]▶
Jupiter would need to weigh 13 times its current mass to become a brown dwarf, and about 83 to 85 times its mass to become a low-mass star [1]

[1]: https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-could-jupiter-ev...

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2. chongli ◴[06 Nov 24 10:27 UTC] No.42059462[source]▶
Also interesting to note that the combined mass of all planets in the solar system is only about 1.4 Jupiter masses (or 0.0014 Solar masses). The Sun did not leave us much to work with if we’re hoping to build a second star!
3. Buttons840 ◴[06 Nov 24 13:50 UTC] No.42062263[source]▶
Earth's mass is something times 10^24. Jupiter's mass is 2 x 10^27. The smallest stars are 8 x 10^28.

On an exponential scale, Jupiter is closer to being a star than it is to being Earth. So... maybe you could say that Jupiter is almost a star. With such loose definitions talking about astronomical scales, there's a lot of room for interpretation and exaggeration.

I think the point is--in the spirit of appreciating Jupiter--Jupiter resembles the largest possible planets.

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4. foobarbecue ◴[06 Nov 24 14:28 UTC] No.42062783[source]▶
In case anyone was wondering, that something is about 6kg.