This may sound idiotic, and if it does please don't consider me an idiot. Jupiter is mainly gas, whereas the sun is also gas, but under extreme heat. So anyway, what would happen if Jupiter and the Sun collided, would the galasy be destroyed in a huge explosion or would it just be the same result as if two solid planets (e.g. Earth and Venus) collided? I was just wondering, it may sound idiotic but I'll never know if I ask.

It does not sound idiotic, I think there was a simulation that showed that most of Jupiter would evaporate before colliding with the sun, but I have to look it up.

The galaxy wouldn't pay attention to it whatsoever. It would be a non-event, galactically speaking. A supernova is a much more significant occurance, and the galaxy is un-affected by one of those.


I'd be more interested in what would cause Jupiter, a gas giant located in a stable orbit around the Sun at an average distance of ~484,000,000 miles (about 5 AU)to decide to just defy the laws of celestial mechanics and increse its eccentricity so that it wound up colliding with the Sun?

p.s. I think two solid planets like Earth and Venus colliding would be a pretty spectacular event too!

There would be no explosion. Jupiter would be destroyed and the Sun would be left unscathed.

It is now believed that many stars destroy their planets in just this way early in their existence.

The biggest problem for us in this hypothetical scenario is that there is no way that Jupiter could move from it's current position to fall towards the sun without causing major mayhem in the inner solar system. The inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) would be greatly affected by a giant planet moving amongst them. They would be thrown out of their current orbits. They would either fall into the sun, collide with Jupiter, becoming captured moons of Jupiter (in which case they would fall into the sun any way) or be flung into the outer solar system (or possibly out of the solar system all together).

case in point if it were to happen... we would be screwed

In developing solar systems it is thought that the dust and gas left over from the nebula in which the star was born slow down the planets in their orbits, causing them to spiral into their parent star. Of course in a solar system as old as ours the vast majority of this nebula has been swept away by the planets. Our sun missed out on her chance to eat her own children.




Just such a collision between the prot-Earth and a Mars sized object is believed to have caused the creation of the Moon.

Anything that could cause Jupiter to fall into the sun would have destroyed this fragile little planet long before hand.

it would be incredable to see the collision through a telescope, But since we have never expereinced this, i have no idea how it would work. Would it shatter on impact or just spit out a huge chunk, or will it just be squished?

Someone help me out plz

As questionmark said, the gases would start to boil off. They don't just disappear though, this gas would still be in orbit around the Sun and so would collide eventually. The gas would stream off of the planet, making Jupiter look like a huge comet.

I suspect that the huge tidal forces Jupiter would experience would rip the planet apart before it fell into the Sun. There is likely to be a series of large impacts rather than one really vast one.