Shadowing Practice: What If You Lit a Match on Jupiter, Would The Planet Explode? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What do you think of when you hear the word giant?

Niagara Falls, Mount Everest, or maybe the Andromeda galaxy?

There are four planets in our solar system that are called giants.

The largest of them is Jupiter.

To understand its size, imagine this.

All the inner planets, namely

Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our native

Earth, are only 0.4% of the mass of all the planets in the solar system.

Do you know how much of the total mass went to Jupiter?

71%.

That is, Jupiter is many times more massive than any other object in our planetary system.

But the most interesting thing is that

Jupiter is a ready-made thermonuclear bomb of monstrous power, and not just a piece of stone hanging in space.

This means it remains to be blown up properly.

The planet belongs to the so-called gas giants.

It's mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, just like our sun, which burns due to continuous thermonuclear reactions.

What if such a reaction were triggered on Jupiter?

If we ignited the combustible gases and dust in Jupiter's atmosphere with an ordinary match,

would the planet be engulfed in universal flames and would there be an explosion?

In fact, in the atmosphere of Jupiter, about 250,000 such matches are lit every second.

Or rather, meteors.

They're attracted to the planet from space and burn up in the atmosphere.

But this doesn't lead to ignition, because there's no free oxygen on the gas giant.

And fire doesn't burn without oxygen.

Try lighting a candle and covering it tightly with a glass flask.

You'll notice that after a few seconds, it goes out.

Because all the oxygen in the flask simply burns up.

Hydrogen, which makes up almost 90% of the planet, is explosive only in the presence of oxygen.

So we can't start a thermonuclear reaction with a normal match.

Jupiter simply doesn't have the kind of fire we're used to seeing on Earth.

If it could be set on fire, small meteors would have done so long ago.

But matches aren't the most technologically advanced invention of mankind.

We could try to start a thermonuclear reaction with something more powerful.

For example, a nuclear bomb.

In fact, we don't need to detonate a bomb on Jupiter to know what would happen.

Over the past 30 years, the planet has experienced such terrible disasters.

Even the most powerful nuclear warhead on Earth wouldn't be able to repeat them.

In 1994, astronomers, for the first time in history,

were able to record the collision of a large cosmic body with a planet in the solar system.

From the 16th to the 22nd of July, a veritable apocalypse was taking place on Jupiter.

21 fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit the gas giant, causing severe surface disturbances.

In less than a week, the southern hemisphere of Jupiter was covered with traces of collisions.

The biggest disaster occurred on the morning of July 18th, after the largest fragment of the comet hit,

A dark spot with a diameter of 7,500 miles appeared on the planet.

This is only 450 miles less than the diameter of the Earth.

However, Jupiter was unharmed.

Astronomers observed explosions of up to 6 million megatons.

This is 750 times more powerful than an explosion of all the nuclear weapons that man has managed to create.

But the traces of the disaster disappeared from the surface of the giant planet within a week.

This isn't the only case of a bombardment of the surface of Jupiter by cosmic bodies.

In the year 2009, another object, presumably a comet, collided with the planet.

The impact caused a dark spot the size of the Pacific Ocean to appear on the surface.

But even this wasn't enough to start a chain thermonuclear reaction.

So, even if we sent all the nuclear bombs to Jupiter and detonated them, there would be no apocalypse.

However, there is one but.

There's a theory on the explosion of giant planets.

It says that humans could destroy

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune with their own hands.

If you organized a nuclear explosion not on the surface of the planet,

but deep inside it, you could start a chain thermonuclear reaction.

With that, after the explosion of Jupiter, humanity, in theory, would come to an end.

It's all about metallic hydrogen, which is stored under monstrous pressure in the bowels of giant planets.

If you're tormented by the question of what the ecological fuel of the future may be, the answer can be found inside hydrogen planets.

The fact is that during the transition of solid hydrogen to the usual molecular phase,

about 20 times more energy is released than when it's burned.

Having a very small fuel block of metallic hydrogen, it would be possible to provide energy to a whole house for several years.

A future where terminators live on self-sufficiently for hundreds of years may become a reality.

Although the existence of metallic hydrogen was predicted as early as the 1930s,

it was only possible to obtain it in extremely small quantities in 2016 by scientists at Harvard University.

However, their achievement was rather coldly received in the scientific community.

It was only recently that French physicists confirmed that solid hydrogen exists and can be produced on Earth.

However, for this, we have to create a pressure of 4 million atmospheres.

Let's go back to the explosion of Jupiter.

On September 21, 2003, NASA decided to sink the Galileo space probe into the planet's atmosphere.

On board the spacecraft were 26 pounds of radioactive plutonium-238,

though it only takes 22 pounds to start a chain reaction.

According to unconfirmed reports, an explosion occurred inside

Jupiter, which left a large black spot on its surface.

This is according to the American writer Richard Hoagland.

But, in fact, as NASA says, the shadow of the satellite fell into the frame of the telescope,

and it has nothing to do with the explosion.

At the same time, Richard himself is a supporter of various conspiracy theories, and often publishes provocative articles.

So draw your own conclusions.

In reality, Jupiter could still be blown up.

However, to do this, you would need to send a nuclear bomb the size of the moon to its core.

And purely hypothetically, a self-sustaining thermonuclear fusion reaction could occur.

From such an explosion, the gas giant would simply be blown apart, and there would be a large-scale catastrophe for the entire solar system.

Jupiter's explosion would be similar to a supernova explosion, but on a smaller scale.

A huge amount of thermal energy

and radiation would be released into outer space solar wind currents would be disrupted

and most planets would permanently change their orbits the earth as we know

it would cease to exist after the explosion

we would lose the ozone layer along with the rest of the atmosphere

and inevitably die from cosmic radiation

and in the sky for a long time the consequences of the explosion would be visible to the naked eye

but there would be no one to see the spectacle.

Only one question remains.

If Jupiter has so much hydrogen, why doesn't it turn into a star instead of remaining a planet?

This is because the mass of the gas giant remains too small for such a transformation.

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Hydrogen in stars is in a plasma state.

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That is, it's heated to extreme temperatures due to reactions in the core.

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Jupiter could be a star if it were 80 times larger.

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Then the temperature inside the planet would reach 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, and we would see another bright star in the sky.

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One thing we know for sure, in our lifetime, no matter how hard we try, we won't be able to blow up Jupiter.

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Therefore, don't be afraid to leave the house because of a supernova explosion.

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It's better to wait until dark, take a small telescope

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and look at the largest planet in the solar system with your own eyes and as always thank you for watching

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “What If You Lit a Match on Jupiter, Would The Planet Explode?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Jupiter, planet, explosion, hydrogen, giant. This video has 106 sentences and 1327 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:54. The speaker talks at a steady 134 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
explosion noun	/ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/	A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical); an act or instance of exploding.
hydrogen noun	/ˈhaɪdɹəd͡ʒ(ə)n/	The lightest chemical element (symbol H), with an atomic number of 1 and atomic weight of 1.008.
atmosphere noun	/ˈætməsˌfɪɹ/	The gases surrounding the Earth or any astronomical body.
oxygen noun	/ˈɑksɪd͡ʒən/	The chemical element (symbol O) with an atomic number of 8 and relative atomic mass of 15.9994. It is a colorless and odorless gas. Sometimes called elemental…
occur verb	/əˈkɜː/	To happen or take place.
disaster noun	/dɪˈzɑːs.təː/	An unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life or sometimes permanent…
metallic adjective	/məˈtæl.ɪk/	Of, relating to, or characteristic of metal.
cosmic adjective	/ˈkɑz.mɪk/	Of or from or pertaining to the cosmos or universe.
comet noun	/ˈkɒmɪt/	A small Solar System body consisting mainly of volatile ice, dust and particles of rock whose very eccentric solar orbit periodically brings it close enough to…
pound noun	/ˈpaʊ̯nd/	A unit of weight in various measurement systems.
radiation noun	/ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/	The shooting forth of anything from a point or surface, like diverging rays of light.
trace noun	/tɹeɪs/	An act of tracing.
diameter noun	/daɪˈæmɪdɚ/	Any straight line between two points on the circumference of a circle that passes through the center of the circle; a chord that passes through the center of…
collision noun	/kəˈlɪʒn̩/	An instance of colliding.
telescope noun	/ˈtɛl.əˌskoʊp/	A monocular optical instrument that magnifies distant objects, especially in astronomy.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
blow up verb		To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
blow apart verb		To destroy (something) by explosion or figuratively similar disasters (e.g. a scandal for a company).
burn up verb		To catch fire and burn until destroyed.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.
make up verb	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	To constitute, to compose.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are called · be blown · were triggered
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has experienced · has managed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	Hydrogen, which makes · hydrogen, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as doesn't, don't, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, thermonuclear /ˌθɜɹ.moʊˈn(j)uk.li.əɹ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: explosion /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/, radiation /ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/, collision /kəˈlɪʒn̩/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/
Long words — get the stress right: radiation /ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/, diameter /daɪˈæmɪdɚ/, apocalypse /əˈpɑkəlɪps/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like explosion, hydrogen, atmosphere.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: What If You Lit a Match on Jupiter, Would The Planet Explode? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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