Robert Fromont

Stranger in an Even Stranger Land

Nothing to write home about

By Jove

Saturday, 6 Aug 2005 - 21:15PM

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It's really really really big, but mostly made up of gasses that are in contantly turbulent motion in swirling bands around its circumference. The weather of this highly toxic 'atmosphere' is permanently inclement - the red 'eye' of Jupiter, which is the characteristic feature of almost any photograph you might see of the planet, is actually a huge storm that has been raging for centuries.

Jupiter is so massive that, even if it were possible for a human being to stand on the surface despite the poisonous atmosphere, they couldn't possibly survive because the enormous atmospheric pressure, combined with bone-crushing gravity, would pulverise their body before they had a chance to wonder why they would want to go to such an inhospitable place.

For carbon, an abundant enough chemical element in Jupiter's makeup, enormous pressure is the perfect environment for the formation of diamonds, so some scientist have speculated that at the core of Jupiter there may be a huge diamond - possibly as large as the Earth.

On one level, then, Jupiter and Tango are the same: something of inestimable worth, completely enveloped by so much crap as to make it forever tormentingly beyond reach.