Celestia Forums

What would happen if two Jupiter-like planets were to collide with one another?

I'm talking just, slam right into each other. No close passes first or anything, just bam, like two pool balls knocked into each other. Barring the feasibility of the event, what would happen?

Well, I can't say anything about that, Don. Edwards, but I just received a .rar file from the guy containing the texture in a 7K jpeg. He was going to send me the 24K psd as well, but it would have made my computer crash and burn.

I just spoke with the original poster today, and he informed me that he is still working on it, but his system is dead and he's been forced to wait until he can acquire the funds to repair/replace the parts he needs before he goes back to working on it.

Don't give up hope

I've got a question. Someone in another topic mentioned briefly that we're seeing the crab nebula as it were 6300 years ago. I'm well aware of all of that, how we see objects as they were in the past, but it made me think of a question. If you were in a spacecraft traveling very fast towards the cra...

The sky colour would depend to some extent on the spectral class of the local sun. A red dwarf star wouldn't create the same vivid blue skies that a sunlike star would. The world in question, my fictional planet Heracles, does in fact orbit a sunlike star. So, everything is good and done here! Than...

What would the upper atmosphere of a gas giant like Jupiter, or Neptune, look like from within the upper layers of its atmosphere? Would it be opaque, like a gaseous soup, or would it be something like Bespin from Star Wars? I'm asking out of personal curiosity. This is how Bespin's "life zone" in t...

They are essentially arranged randomly. Whenever you have more than one moon it is difficult to place them without it looking like they're all aligned in a straight set which, while it may be realistic, isn't particularly pleasing to look at, I find.

selden wrote:I was referring to the bright patches that seem to surround the sun. Artistic is good

Ah, just distant stars then.

Stellatus, The artwork seems quite well done. Obviously you've had some experience doing it. Of course, the crescents that are illuminated should be a lot thinner, but that's reasonable artistic license :) Is the partial halo supposed to be an illuminated cloud of dust or distant stars? I'm not sur...

Wow, thank you for your very indepth and informative responses. As for the planet's color and appearence - I never intend to get too indepth on Heracles' composition; it simply isn't an important matter to the story. Heracles is blue, so it is up to the reader - should they be curious - to find out ...

The captured-moon idea was one I was already preparing to use to explain the orbit. I was not aware of the mass situation, however, it seems to fit nicely.

I'm not a professional astronomer, but here are some of my impressions about such a situation. Unfortunately, the maximum radius of gas giants is only slightly larger than Jupiter's (~80,000 km). The increased gravity of larger planets mashes them down. See http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/grad/classes/s...

I am a writer and artist. Some time ago I did a painting of a system I have come to call the Heracles Quartet , a large gas giant with a system of 3 primary moons, one of which is inhabited. I have some questions regarding the feasability of an earth-sized moon orbiting a gas giant that is approxima...