<p><a href="http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/gas-giants.html">http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/gas-giants.html</a></p>

<p>We think of a gas as something very . . . well, airy. After all, air is the gas we all know and love. We breathe it and fly planes right through it with no trouble. So it makes sense to think that a gas planet must be like a big, airy cloud floating out in space.
Saturn in true color.</p>

<p>The bigger a planet becomes, the heavier is the material weighing down on its center. Think of how it feels to dive under water. If you are wearing a face mask, you notice that as you dive deeper, the mask presses harder and harder on your face. Also, your ears start feeling the pressure even at 2 or 3 meters (5 or 10 feet) below the surface. The pressure you feel on your body is due to the weight of the water above you. The deeper you go, the heavier the water above you and so the greater the pressure on your body. Even on Earth's surface, each square inch of your body experiences 14.7 pounds of pressure due to the weight of the atmosphere above you. If you could dive down to the center of Earth, the pressure on your body would be about 3.5 million times as great! The center of Jupiter is more than 11 times deeper than Earth's center and the pressure may be 50 million to 100 million times that on Earth's surface!</p>

<p>The tremendous pressure at the center of planets causes the temperatures there to be surprisingly high. At their cores, Jupiter and Saturn are much hotter than the surface of the Sun!</p>

<p>Strange things happen to matter under these extraordinary temperatures and pressures. Hydrogen, along with helium, is the main ingredient of Jupiter's and Saturn's atmospheres. Deep in their atmospheres, the hydrogen turns into a liquid. Deeper still, the liquid hydrogen turns into a metal!</p>

<p>But what's at the very center of these planets? The material becomes stranger and stranger the deeper you go. Scientists do not understand the properties of matter under the extreme environments inside Jupiter and Saturn. Many different forces and laws of nature are at work, and the conditions inside these planets are very difficult to create in a laboratory here on Earth. But you can be sure that you wouldn't be able to fly through these bizarre materials! As we now know, the gas giants are much more than just gas.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-30T18:51:57.670Z
Wow, thinking about all the sub-stack I'm registered to, this is the best answer I ever received all across. You should make a youtube video and just read what you wrote. :)
FMaz008
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-29T20:05:25.743Z
2014-10-29T20:05:25.743Z
Scottie
<p>If Jupiter is made of gas, could we fly or drive through it or would its center be too dense?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-29T21:21:53.947Z
In 2003, the Galileo probe was [deliberately crashed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(spacecraft)#End_of_mission_and_deorbit) into Jupiter's atmosphere. As expected, it did not survive.
Keith Thompson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-30T02:24:58.073Z
Or ask Comet Shoemaker-Levy
DJohnM
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-30T18:48:18.697Z
I was aware of those 2 (well, sort of), but I thought just as a meteorite arrive with soo much speed it get disintegrated by the atmosphere, maybe the same happened with Jupiter. In that sense, my question was more: if you go slowly, could you go through ?
FMaz008
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-30T20:34:08.837Z
@Keith: That's assuming current technology.  I think the spirit of the question is more along the lines of, "given sufficient technology that a device could survive the searing temperatures and crushing pressures, could we fly/drive through Jupiter?"
Scottie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-31T00:42:09.460Z
@Scottie: Yes, given technology sufficiently advanced to fly through Jupiter, we could fly through Jupiter. (Borrowing from science fiction, the Enterprise couldn't do it.)
Keith Thompson
<jupiter><core>
Could we fly/drive through Jupiter?
FMaz008
# Could we fly/drive through Jupiter?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-10-29)

If Jupiter is made of gas, could we fly or drive through it or would its center be too dense?

**Tags:** jupiter, core

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: In 2003, the Galileo probe was [deliberately crashed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(spacecraft)#End_of_mission_and_deorbit) into Jupiter's atmosphere. As expected, it did not survive.  
> **username_2**: Or ask Comet Shoemaker-Levy  
> **username_0**: I was aware of those 2 (well, sort of), but I thought just as a meteorite arrive with soo much speed it get disintegrated by the atmosphere, maybe the same happened with Jupiter. In that sense, my question was more: if you go slowly, could you go through ?  
> **username_3**: @username_1: That's assuming current technology.  I think the spirit of the question is more along the lines of, "given sufficient technology that a device could survive the searing temperatures and crushing pressures, could we fly/drive through Jupiter?"  
> **username_1**: @username_3: Yes, given technology sufficiently advanced to fly through Jupiter, we could fly through Jupiter. (Borrowing from science fiction, the Enterprise couldn't do it.)  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2014-10-29. Score: 14 | Accepted answer

<http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-solar-system/gas-giants.html>

We think of a gas as something very . . . well, airy. After all, air is the gas we all know and love. We breathe it and fly planes right through it with no trouble. So it makes sense to think that a gas planet must be like a big, airy cloud floating out in space.
Saturn in true color.

The bigger a planet becomes, the heavier is the material weighing down on its center. Think of how it feels to dive under water. If you are wearing a face mask, you notice that as you dive deeper, the mask presses harder and harder on your face. Also, your ears start feeling the pressure even at 2 or 3 meters (5 or 10 feet) below the surface. The pressure you feel on your body is due to the weight of the water above you. The deeper you go, the heavier the water above you and so the greater the pressure on your body. Even on Earth's surface, each square inch of your body experiences 14.7 pounds of pressure due to the weight of the atmosphere above you. If you could dive down to the center of Earth, the pressure on your body would be about 3.5 million times as great! The center of Jupiter is more than 11 times deeper than Earth's center and the pressure may be 50 million to 100 million times that on Earth's surface!

The tremendous pressure at the center of planets causes the temperatures there to be surprisingly high. At their cores, Jupiter and Saturn are much hotter than the surface of the Sun!

Strange things happen to matter under these extraordinary temperatures and pressures. Hydrogen, along with helium, is the main ingredient of Jupiter's and Saturn's atmospheres. Deep in their atmospheres, the hydrogen turns into a liquid. Deeper still, the liquid hydrogen turns into a metal!

But what's at the very center of these planets? The material becomes stranger and stranger the deeper you go. Scientists do not understand the properties of matter under the extreme environments inside Jupiter and Saturn. Many different forces and laws of nature are at work, and the conditions inside these planets are very difficult to create in a laboratory here on Earth. But you can be sure that you wouldn't be able to fly through these bizarre materials! As we now know, the gas giants are much more than just gas.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Wow, thinking about all the sub-stack I'm registered to, this is the best answer I ever received all across. You should make a youtube video and just read what you wrote. :)  

---

