Reader TTS

In the distant future, humanity may be able to ‘stellify’ Jupiter – to turn it into a star – with miniature black holes. Astrophysicist Martyn Fogg first proposed the sensational idea and

states that when technology and knowledge is sufficient, scientists could use black holes to seed the gas giant and begin the process of turning it into a star. As there is a lot of hydrogen

on Jupiter, the King of the Solar System, as it has been dubbed for its immense size, would burn slowly releasing enough energy. But as the gas giant relatively small, compared to a star

like the sun for example, it would not be hot enough to destroy everything that surrounds it. The end goal would be to terraform the likes of Europa and Ganymede – two moons of Jupiter – so

that they one day become habitable. According to the astrophysicist, this process would produce "energy sufficient to create effective temperatures on Europa and Ganymede that would be

similar to the values on Earth and Mars, respectively.” He writes in his research paper ‘Stellifying Jupiter: A First Step To Terraforming the Galilean Satellites: “The aim would be for the

hole to be captured by Jupiter so that it would orbit the centre of mass of the planet intemally, as close to the core as possible.” IS THERE LIFE ON JUPITER'S MOON? NASA THINKS SO

GETTY Europa and Ganymede could be terraformed and become habitable through Jupiter's stellification However, he adds that “the feasibility of this scenario depends on the prevalence of

primordial black holes and the efficiency of conversion of rest mass to energy for black hole accretion from a dense medium.” The futuristic plan does not come without its risks though.

GETTY The star would be afraction of the brightness of our sun There is a very real danger that the black hole could grow to an uncontrollable size and completely consume Jupiter. This would

release an immense burst of radiation that could wipe out all life in the solar system in an instant. Physicist and astrobiologist Milan M. Ćirković from the Astronomical Observatory of

Belgrade told Gizmodo: “In the latter phases of stellification, after about 100 million years or so, the stellified Jupiter will be extremely bright and might become quite unstable.

"This could jeopardize the rest of the Solar System, or an analogous planetary system for extraterrestrial stellifications."