S
schticknz
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noddwyd said:There are a number of problems with this idea. First the supposed goal of creating a second sun in our solar system in order to utilize Titan probably won't work first and obviously because Saturn is too small, or so we think. The most that could happen would be for it to become a failed star or dark star, which does give some heat but nowhere approaching a full star's power. Leaving conspiracy out of this, we still shouldn't be haphazardly throwing fissionable materials into a gas giant when we, as far as I'm concerned, don't know what the hell we're doing or what consequences it could have.
The effects seen on Jupiter seem minor because its so large, but Saturn is considerably smaller and this is, if I'm reading this right a much larger payload which could, let's stress could, have a cummulative or even synergystic effect potentially causing drastic changes to both Saturn and Titan, or even further reaching than that.
Hasn't the guy who started this thread even read 2010 by Arthur C. Clarke???? In that sequel to 2001, Jupiter is turned into the second star in the solar system. But ... even though, Jupiter is more massive than Saturn, millions of monoliths were needed to build up enough mass for it to go nuclear ... as it were. Sooo ... I don't think one wee space probe is enough somehow to make Saturn go to critical mass ... well not in my universe anyway.
And as for the effects of the Cassini probe hitting Saturn? Well its doubtful that anyone knows whats going to happen. But that won't stop the scientists from throwing it into Saturns atmosphere just to see what happens ... remember scientists used to explode nuclear bombs in the atmosphere and in space just to see what happened??
Nothing of major consequence happened though as far as we can tell ... although my third arm is being a bit itchy today