Life on gas giants.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

He probably meant the g calculated at the visual radius of Jupiter. It kinda looks like the surface and there the atmosphere is within 0.01 to 100 atms which is possible for life.

The vacuum I mentioned was the thing I might use for the swim bladder. A big tank, "reinforced with naturally occuring carbon fiber", containing a vaccuum can give bouyancy in hydrogen.

[Raiden]

Psst, where's Jupiter's "surface"? 

Jupiter has a surface made of Hydrogen so dense that it has become metallic. It you get too close, the intense gravity would pull you in so fast you'd be a fine, red vapor before you ever reached the metallic Hydrogen part.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

No. The gravity is not like a black hole don't hope to get yourself shredded. You will, however, crush under the enormous pressure.

[Tsäroltxe te Eyrutì Tantse'itan]

You'd get crushed if you didn't get burnt by the temperature there. (10,000 K)

[Raiden]

No. The gravity is not like a black hole don't hope to get yourself shredded. You will, however, crush under the enormous pressure.

Being dragged towards the center that fast in a dense atmosphere would create such friction that you would be torn apart many times going at that speed, if I'm not mistaken.

[Clarke]

Gravity is a force, not a speed. You can't attain speed in the first place if air resistance gets in your way.

[Raiden]

But Gravity is going to act on you, giving you speed.

For example, Ikran are so aerodynamic because they need to reach certain speeds to hunt for food and escape from predators effectively. Due to the high heavy atmosphere on Pandora, if something that wasn't aerodynamic enough went that fast, the larger molecules in the atmosphere would generate enough friction that it would be torn apart.

The same thing happens on Earth; when a meteor begins to fall into our atmosphere due to gravity, the immense friction generated by the un-aerodynamic meteor pushing through the molecules of gas that make up our atmosphere at very high speeds begins to tear it apart; most meteors aren't big enough to last through this, and are torn apart before they reach the surface.

It is also the same reason why space shuttles are designed the way they are; the more aerodynamic an object is, the easier it moves through any atmosphere. So when space shuttles fly back to Earth and land, they don't generate as much friction against the atmosphere because they are designed to reduce it as much as possible. If the shuttle was shaped like a schoolbus, it would be far more likely to disintegrate in the atmosphere than to make it past re-entry and land.

The same thing is true of Jupiter. If the gravity on Jupiter begins pulling you in, you'll eventually accelerate to the point that the friction agai  nst it's thick atmosphere would rip you apart.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Ohhhh..... That is just wrong!

Friction decreases your speed. It WILL NOT pull you apart unless you crash into the atmosphere at a high speed. You cannot actually reach that high speed if you start your flight IN the atmosphere unless you strap on big rocket engines.

This means that aerodynamic shapes are not for preventing the thing from being torn up, it is just necessary for the thing to actually gain the speed. Friction is roughly proportional to speed, so an falling object will have more and more friction pulling up on it. However, gravity will not get stronger. As the object accelerates, the friction will eventually balance the gravity out.

By the way, how would a non-aerodynamic Ikran fly that fast? Of course at the same speed it will get torn apart, but it wouldn't have the brute force to fly faster than the terminal falling velocity unless you put extremely big engines and muscles on it.

If you hang yourself on a ceiling in Jupiter and you do not get torn apart, there is no way you can get torn apart by friction. Hanging from the ceiling is similar to falling at the terminal velocity.

By another way, have you noticed how slowly Na'vi fall through Pandora? Why don't they fall as fast as a rock and get torn apart? Ask yourself this question.

[Raiden]

Ohhhh..... That is just wrong!

Friction decreases your speed. It WILL NOT pull you apart unless you crash into the atmosphere at a high speed. You cannot actually reach that high speed if you start your flight IN the atmosphere unless you strap on big rocket engines.

This means that aerodynamic shapes are not for preventing the thing from being torn up, it is just necessary for the thing to actually gain the speed. Friction is roughly proportional to speed, so an falling object will have more and more friction pulling up on it. However, gravity will not get stronger. As the object accelerates, the friction will eventually balance the gravity out.

By the way, how would a non-aerodynamic Ikran fly that fast? Of course at the same speed it will get torn apart, but it wouldn't have the brute force to fly faster than the terminal falling velocity unless you put extremely big engines and muscles on it.

If you hang yourself on a ceiling in Jupiter and you do not get torn apart, there is no way you can get torn apart by friction. Hanging from the ceiling is similar to falling at the terminal velocity.

By another way, have you noticed how slowly Na'vi fall through Pandora? Why don't they fall as fast as a rock and get torn apart? Ask yourself this question.

Lol, chill out.

Where did I say that I was talking about an animal flying that fast? I was just using the Ikran as a familiar example for something aerodynamic that has to fly in a thicker-than-Earth atmosphere.

All I was doing was explaining how something could be torn apart by going too fast in dense atmospheres. I wasn't really thinking of something falling that fast in the atmosphere to start with, but rather something falling towards the planet from space.