What if Jupiter was a star?

Question

Jupiter is often called a failed star. It's a gas giant that consists mostly of hydrogen and helium. One of its moons is larger than Mercury. Jupiter is so massive that instead of orbiting the sun, both of them orbit a common point in-between.

Suppose Jupiter was massive enough to initiate the fusion of hydrogen and ignited as a star. What would today's solar system look like then? Would life on earth be possible? Would Jupiter "snatch" planets away from the sun?

Answer 1

Have you been watching that video on the 'Lucifer Project' per chance?

Interesting video, but most likely, unlikely.

Answer 2

Jupiter is farther away from us than the sun is.  So, even if it were as big and bright as the sun, it wouldn't look nearly as bright from here.  So, we'd have some more light, and "night" would be a bit different depending on where Jupiter happened to be at the time, but things on Earth wouldn't change too much.

There would be more changes in the outer planets, suddenly Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus would be much closer to a source of warmth.

Answer 3

One of the reasons Jupiter didn't become a star, and ended up becoming a gas giant, is because it didn't have enough mass to burn. So if we were to increase the mass of Jupiter to the mass of our sun, I wonder what would happen... I can calculate it for you, and lets see what happens. We're going to use Newton's equation to calculate the theoretical gravitational pull between Earth and Jupiter with the same mass as the sun. The main variable between the sun and Jupiter will be the distance.

F = G * m(1) * m(2) / r^2

F = gravitational force between the two objects

G = universal gravitational constant (6.6726 x 10^-11)

m(1) = mass of first object

m(2) = mass of second object

r = distance between the two objects.

Lets start by calculating the gravitational attraction between the Earth and the sun.

Lets define the variables:

F = ?

G = .000000000066726

m(1) = mass of sun (1.98892 × 10^30)

m(2) = mass of Earth (5.9742 × 10^24)

r = distance (149,668,992 km)

so...

F = (.000000000066726) (1.98892 x 10^30) (5.9742 x 10^24) / 149.668,992 ^2

Now we calculate O.o thats why we have google! I've found this website that will calculate this for us. The answer I got for the gravitational attraction between the Earth and the Sun is:

35,393,906,237,200,000,000,000 newtons.

Now we need to calculate it for Jupiter. The only things we need to change is the distance. This time we need to calculate it for the distance between Jupiter and Earth.

r = 353,939,062,372 miles  

The answer is:

244,364,098,781,000,000,000 newtons

Jupiter(sun) -and- Earth: 244,364,098,781,000,000,000

Sun -and- Earth: 35,393,906,237,200,000,000,000

As you can see, we would still be orbiting the sun, though Earth would take on an oblong shape because of the enormous gravitational force of the Jupiter star which has the same mass as our sun. All planets would heat up, and these extreme solar winds would blow the atmosphere of Earth and Mars away, and probably wiping out all life on Earth. Thank goodness Jupiter isn't a star! But an interesting question is, would these two stars orbit each other? That would wipe s***w up everything in the solar system, but it would be interesting to study.

Answer 4

A lot of people here are espousing some pretty nonsensical opinions. While it's true the Jupiter and the Sun orbit a common point, that point is still well within the mass of the sun. Jupiter and all the other planets still make up around 1% of the total mass of the entire solar system, with the Sun far and away the bulk of the rest.

It's difficult to say exactly how a Jovian sun would impact the other planets. You would need to determine the minimum amount of mass required for stellar ignition, then see how that would impact other orbits. There's also the question of how long would a Jovian sun would be able to continue the process of fusion. Would it have exhausted the hydrogen by now? Would it be burning helium? Would it be a dwarf or a giant? These questions obviously would have a great impact on answering the main point.

On the other hand, if Jupiter were of the same mass it has now, but somehow compacted more, it could ignite with the fuel it has now. With the same mass, the orbits of the other planets would probably be unaffected. It would not cause much (if any) change to the other gas giants, since they are all very far away from each other. The common textbook picture of the solar system makes it look like Jupiter and Saturn are always nearly side by side. If 'side-by-side' means a car driving in Florida and a car driving in Montana, then that's true. Jupiter takes about 11 years to orbit the sun, and Saturn nearly 30. Since Jupiter's mass does not seem to cause any major disruption to Saturn so far, solar activity would probably not cause much more.

A Jupiter-mass star would also not cause any difference to temperature on Earth. It would just be too far away, and it's possible that the solar wind from the sun would easily negate any Jovian influence in our neighborhood.

And it goes without saying that as a gas giant or a star, if Jupiter's mass is the same, it would not snatch any planets from the sun.

So in the end, it all comes down to mass. If Jupiter stays the same mass as now, little or no change. Enough mass for fusion, some change expected, but you can't say for sure without knowing how much mass there is.

The only thing that would change for certain either way is the conditions on the Jovian moons.  

Answer 5

The perfect answer to your question can be found at the end of the movie 2010, sequel to 2001. Without giving away too much of the movie, it shows what would happen if Jupiter gained enough mass right now to become a star. Humanity is saved for a nice ending.

For my own answer to your question, over 99.99% of the total mass of our solar system lies with the sun. All the planets, even Jupiter, are insignificant in comparison. Looking at only the planets though, Jupiter has more mass than all the other planets combined. I don't know the exact figures, but Jupiter would have to gain quite a bit more mass to ignite hydrogen fusion. Indeed, if that were the case, Jupiter would have enough gravity to change the orbits of the planets, mainly Saturn and beyond. It would be much hotter and probably more hostile here on earth for life to persist. Pure speculation after that.

Answer 6

we would be dead because we would have 2 suns

Answer 7

Maybe raise the temperature on Mars enough to support life.

Answer 8

yes, jupiter and the sun orbit a common point. just like our moon doesnt orbit the earth, they both orbit a common point. if you were in orbit around earth, you wouldnt really be orbiting earth. you would both be orbiting a common point.

jupiter is called a failed star just because its made of mostly hydrogen and its *relatively* massive. failed stars are more properly called brown dwarfs. and as far as brown dwarfs go, jupiter is a weakling. its not even a brown dwarf or a failed star, people just like how that sounds.

Answer 9

It would look very different the planets in our solar system would be orbiting jupiter instead and planets near by to Jupiter would be sucked in. Earth would be too hot to support life and our rotation around the sun would not exist so our planet would not be in the same conditions as it is now, so all would be very different.  

Answer 10

there would be no life it too close and the conditions are not right. the planets would shift to how the suns would pull them and more planets would form be cause of the blast and new found gravity  

Answer 11

its probably impossible unless all the calculus since galelio till today were wrong, astar isnt a star if it doesnt have high ability to pull and to maintain,

if jupiter was a star then both of the solar systems would crash each others, and we would have been did like 7 milion years ago

Answer 12

Then we would have two suns in the sky-- Jupiter would be bright enough to cast shadows during the night time. Depending on the size of Jupiter-- the solar system formation could have been different........ however it could be a star if it's mass was just a little bit more--- hence the premise of the movie 2001.

Answer 13

No.

Answer 14

you wouldn't be alive to ask this question.

Answer 15

To 'snatch' planets from the sun as you put it, Jupiter would have to gain a lot more mass than it now has (it would have to do that to ignite anyway)  More mass = more gravitational pull

Since there is no known way that Jupiter could gain more mass, it's not going to ignite and 'snatch' any planets from the sun.

If it WERE to ignite, than it would get pretty d**n hot here on earth.  Probably too hot for life to exist.  

Answer 16

it would look very diffrent.... not only would mercury and venus be uninhabitable... so would earth and mars...

earth would definately become very hot... it's pretty temperate now, just imagine if it had another star heating it, and this close by too...

it's an intresting theory, especially considering most stars in our system are part of a bi- or trinary system.