Jupiter is different every time we visit it. My understanding of gas giant planets is that they have no surface, just a turbulent atmosphere increasing in density all the way down to an eventual core. The Jupiter of ...Flying Mountains does have a surface but not one that anyone can walk on:
"The greenhouse effect operated. Jupiter's surface was warm enough to have oceans like Earth's. No man had seen them. The weight of atmosphere would have crumpled any hull like tinfoil. Even at this altitude, Mary Girl sped through an air pressure several times that of sea-level Earth." (p. 158)
Scoopships skim in and out of the upper atmosphere. (See the attached Analog cover.) Any action on Jupiter in this story, "Que Donn'rez Vous?," can only be at a very high altitude. The description of Jupiter has maybe moved towards the gas giant model - and goes all the way in Poul Anderson's "Hunters of the Sky Cave"? (Except that "Hunters..." was published earlier than "What'll You Give?") (See Bibliography.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson always strove in his hard SF to keep the science seen in these stories as accurate as possible at the times they were written. Sometimes later advances, discoveries, speculations, etc., made that science obsolete. Which he accepted as inevitable.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment