At the moment I'm stuck indoors with a second dose of Covid: despite having had the disease last April, and having had all the available injections, I'm feeling a lot worse this time... I'm stuck in front of the TV and am beginning to realise how much rubbish is churned out every day!
Tomorrow (with luck!) the European Space Agency space probe JUICE will begin its long mission to Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. Following its eight-year slingshot path around the inner planets, it should eventually reach the gas giant and begin investigations of its four largest satellites.
For some reason the two scientifically-challenged presenters of BBC Breakfast decided to cover the story this morning, being assisted by a guest astrophysicist. The whole segment was frankly embarrasing, with schoolboy errors aplenty: the most ludicrous of these was when the appropriately named Charlie asked if the spacecraft could fly through the centre of Jupiter, since '...it's just made of gas'
What really amazed me, though was that the guest 'expert' replied that, yes, in theory it could!
As I'm sure most of you know, Jupiter, like all the planets in the Solar System, has a solid core, similar in structure to the Earth. This is surrounded by a deep, super-dense metallic hydrogen and helium layer. The temperature at the centre of Jupiter is around 25,000 C. Fly through? I don't think so!
The item continued with Naga and Charlie blathering on about a subject about which they clearly had little or no knowledge...
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