Here's What Would Happen if We Tried to Land on Jupiter

Jupiter, the solar system's most massive planet, is a place of great mystery. Earthlings admire Jupiter's beauty through photographs captured with telescopes and by the Juno probe. On the other hand, we may never get to see what lies underneath the planet's dense and swirly clouds.

Unlike other planets, where we can just launch a lander or rover to explore the surface, Jupiter isn't so easy. The massive planet's innermost atmosphere generates crushing pressures and scorching temperatures that would render any attempt futile.

Before getting even halfway down into Jupiter's thick atmosphere, the pressure would be significant enough to crush any spacecraft. Furthermore, temperatures would be hot enough to melt tungsten - the metal with the highest-known melting point.

Assuming we could get a probe to survive these depths into Jupiter's atmosphere, we'd never be able to transmit information back to Earth. Jupiter's atmosphere becomes so dense that it can absorb radio waves. It would effectively cut any surviving spacecraft off from civilization, and we'd never hear from it again.

It's a bit of a bummer that we may never get to explore Jupiter's guts. The mystery continues to riddle planetary scientists' minds to this very day.