# What would skydiving on Jupiter be like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2025, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198 "2025-04-19T01:17:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hal1776](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecae2f/32.png) [@Hal1776](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal1776)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/1 "2025-04-19T01:17:00Z")
What would it be like to go skydiving on Jupiter, assuming you had a suit that would allow you to survive until you were at the core? ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/2 "2025-04-19T10:34:56Z")
Until a proper scientist comes along, [here](https://youtu.be/bjMqJ--aUJ8) is a video showing an actual real life simulation of falling into Jupiter. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/3 "2025-04-19T12:36:39Z")
[The last entry in this list seems relevant.](https://xkcd.com/1752/) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/4 "2025-04-19T14:08:13Z")
They forgot the part where the intense pressures separate the carbon atoms from your body and compress them. And you become a literal rain of diamonds. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/5 "2025-04-19T14:31:08Z")
> [@Hal1776](#): > > assuming you had a suit that would allow you to survive That would be a rather thick lead suit (even covering the eyes) given the massive radiation Jupiter produces. Cooling the lead suit would be basically magic. And forget having a screen in front of your eyes connected to an external camera, the radiation would wipe out the camera. There’s easier ways to end it all. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/6 "2025-04-19T14:48:24Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Until a proper scientist comes along, [here](https://youtu.be/bjMqJ--aUJ8) is a video showing an actual real life > simulation of falling into Jupiter. That video (quite cool!) says you would eventually ended up on an icy, rocky core. I didn’t realize that the gas giants had a solid center. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/7 "2025-04-19T15:24:17Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I didn’t realize that the gas giants had a solid center. They’re probably not very big, relatively speaking. Maybe smaller than the earth? And maybe solid diamond. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/8 "2025-04-19T17:13:15Z")
Gas giants contain every element found in rocky planets, they just have a much bigger percentage of hydrogen and helium on top of it. Any element you can think of, Jupiter has a much larger amount of it than Earth does. The core is likely to be one or two or three dozen Earth masses of everything the Earth is made out of. > Scientists aren’t certain of just how solid Jupiter’s core might be. While some theorize that the core is a hot molten ball of liquid, other research indicates that it could be a solid rock 14 to 18 times the mass of the Earth. The temperature at the core is estimated to be about 35,000 degrees Celsius (63,000 degrees Fahrenheit). > > Discussions about Jupiter’s core didn’t even begin until the late 1990s, when gravitational measurements revealed that the center of the gas giant was anywhere from 12 to 45 times the mass of Earth. And just because it had a core in the past doesn’t mean that it still will today – new evidence suggests that the gas giant’s core may be melting. > **[What is Jupiter Made Of?](https://www.space.com/18388-what-is-jupiter-made-of.html)** > > Jupiter is composed of gases — hydrogen and helium, mostly — all the way down to its core, which may be a molten ball or a solid rock. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/9 "2025-04-19T23:43:07Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > ended up on an icy, rocky core Note that’s not “icy” in the sense of very cold. Jupiter on it’s own puts out a significant amount of heat. It’s “icy” in the sense of stuff we consider liquid or gas compressed into a solid. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/10 "2025-04-25T07:12:20Z")
Would the skydiver actually reach the core? I’d think there’d be a point where the diver’s density is lower than that of the gas and they’d become bouyant. And that point would likely be before reaching the core. OK, just viewed the video @pjd posted and they make that point, although they pretend your SF suit could take you deeper. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/11 "2025-04-25T07:28:53Z")
Another thing about Jupiter’s core. Based on data from the Juno space probe, it looks like the core is not as solid and dense as previously thought. Researchers hypothesize that a collision with another planet early in the history of the solar system broke up the core and distributed that mass within the inner half of the planet. > **[Jupiter's Strange Core May Have Been Forged by a Colossal Head-On Crash](https://www.space.com/jupiter-strange-core-formed-by-collision.html)** > > A massive planetary embryo may have hit Jupiter 4.5 billion years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2025, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-skydiving-on-jupiter-be-like/1017198/12 "2025-04-25T07:43:08Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > That would be a rather thick lead suit (even covering the eyes) given the massive radiation Jupiter produces. Cooling the lead suit would be basically magic. And forget having a screen in front of your eyes connected to an external camera, the radiation would wipe out the camera. Jupiter doesn’t _produce_ radiation; it captures radiation from the Sun with its powerful magnetic field. The radiation is confined to Jupiter’s intense radiation belts, it neither strikes the surface nor is emitted from it (just like Earth’s much weaker version). If the Jupiter-diver hopped out of a spacecraft below the lowest radiation belt they’d have nothing to worry about in terms of radiation. Being crushed by the atmosphere when they got deep enough would be another matter, of course…