What If You Fell Into Jupiter?

If you fell into Jupiter, you would never hit the ground, because there isn't any. You'd fall through clouds of ammonia ice, past a storm as wide as Earth, through lightning and slushy hail, until the sky itself turns into an ocean of liquid metal. Follow the path of the only spacecraft that ever fell into Jupiter, NASA's Galileo probe, and keep going: 71,500 km down to the planet's strange, fuzzy core. Where should we go next: Earth's core, inside the Sun, or into a black hole? Tell me in the comments. Chapters 0:00 What if you fell into Jupiter? 0:50 The biggest planet 1:44 The only probe that ever fell in 2:26 Falling through the clouds 3:12 The Great Red Spot 3:45 Lightning and mushballs 4:14 The point of no return 4:57 An ocean of metal 5:51 The fuzzy core 6:39 What's next Sources Size (1,321 Earths by volume), mass (2.47× all other planets combined), day (9 h 56 min), radius (71,492 km), escape velocity (59.5 km/s): NASA NSSDCA Jupiter fact sheet — https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/fact... Galileo probe entry at 47.4 km/s: Erb et al. 2020, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets — https://doi.org/10.2514/1.A34751 Galileo probe descent, 58 minutes of data: Atkinson et al. 1998, JGR Planets — https://doi.org/10.1029/98JE00060 Galileo probe at ~150 km: 22 bar, ~150 °C: Seiff et al. 1998, JGR Planets — https://doi.org/10.1029/98JE01766 Galileo mission overview (heat-shield loss, ~14,000 °C shock layer): NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/mission/galileo/ Juno's titanium vault: NASA JPL — https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/juno-armored... Cloud decks at ~0.7, ~2 and ~5 bar: Li et al. 2020, Nature Astronomy — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1009-3 Great Red Spot winds above 640 km/h: Wong et al. 2021, Geophysical Research Letters — https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093982 Great Red Spot size (2024): Simon et al. 2024, Planetary Science Journal — https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ad71d1 Great Red Spot watched since 1831: Sánchez-Lavega et al. 2024, Geophysical Research Letters — https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL108993 Great Red Spot depth (350–500 km): Bolton et al. 2021, Science — https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf1015 ; Parisi et al. 2021, Science — https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf1396 Shallow lightning: Becker et al. 2020, Nature — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2532-1 Mushballs: Guillot et al. 2020, JGR Planets — https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JE006403 ; NASA — https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/shallow... Metallic hydrogen near 1 million bar, interior temperatures: Militzer & Hubbard 2024, Icarus — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2024.115955 ; Stevenson 2020, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences — https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-0816... Jupiter's magnetosphere (tail to Saturn's orbit, bigger than the full Moon in our sky): NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/resource/jupiters... Helium rain: von Zahn et al. 1998, JGR Planets — https://doi.org/10.1029/98JE00695 ; Brygoo et al. 2021, Nature — https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03516-0 The fuzzy (dilute) core: Wahl et al. 2017, Geophysical Research Letters — https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL073160 ; Militzer et al. 2022, Planetary Science Journal — https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ac7ec8 Europa Clipper (arrives 2030): NASA — https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-cl... JUICE (arrives 2031): ESA — https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Sp... Footage & images Juno footage and images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS (PIA25723, PIA22906, PIA22176, PIA21772, PIA21775, PIA20704, PIA25020) Great Red Spot visualization: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Galileo probe photo (1984): NASA Ames Research Center Galileo probe paintings: Don Davis for NASA; Boris Rabin for NASA Europa: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute (PIA19048) Europa Clipper illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech (PIA26442) JUICE launch photo: Benoît Seignovert, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ES... Full Moon photo: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Jupiter globe: Cassini map by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute (PIA07782) · Earth: NASA Blue Marble · U.S. map: Natural Earth Animation, music and sound design: original Narration: AI voice #jupiter #space #science