Investigations into NASA's transformative planet Saturn operation

Using the Cassini satellite as a delivery medium, very hard, nearly indestructible items were inserted into Saturn in 2017.

https://rps.nasa.gov/power-and-thermal-systems/thermal-systems/general-purpose-heat-source/

There were 216 plutonium fuel pellets inserted into Saturn in 2017. Because of the nature of these GPHS's (Pu fuel pellets within) many were not destroyed on 9-15-17 during the plunge into Saturn and are still slowly dropping deeper into Saturn's liquid hydrogen now. Three GPHS-RTG units (each with 72 pellets) were plunged into Saturn using the Cassini satellite. Although NASA claims that all Cassini components were incinerated upon entry, this simply cannot be true for the items within the GPHS units, which are built to survive such entries and beyond. These pellets have indicated a history of fission imploding under great pressure as we witnessed on Jupiter when Galileo's GPHS's were inserted in 2003. The "Wesley Mark" of 2009 is a good example of the result: a silica-laden mark welling up from deep inside Jupiter resulting from a fission implosion of at least one of the pellets nearly 6 years after entry. We should expect a similar event within the next few years at Saturn (2022-2026).

Although there was ultimately no lasting drastic effect on Jupiter (other than many bright surface flashes imaged since then), Saturn could present a different scenario, as a cascading collapse is possible there making Saturn's upper realms pull to the lower realms (see diagrams below), eventually imploding the planet into itself. Saturn's composition with a much larger solid core than Jupiter's allows for this.

Scientists have calculated a dense, solid Saturn core between 9 and 22 masses of Earth, 15,500 miles diameter (20% of the total diameter of Saturn). By comparison, Jupiter's solid core is/was thought to be small to non-existent, very diffuse all of the way to the center. A much more concentrated solid core at Saturn's center would cause a much more forceful expulsion in the transition from solid to liquid and gas.

Turning a gas giant inside out

The method by which this might be done is shown below

The iridium cladding protection (with a thick carbon heat shield surrounding it) enables the encased Pu fuel pellets to survive a very deep drop into Saturn which may in the near future lead to the sequence below. Research into the "equation of state" of platinum metals (iridium being one of those) shows that pellet survival is possible up to 80% into Saturn's depths (the point at which matter turns solid there at the core).

"Equation of state" formulas allow external pressure to increase "melting point" temperatures in a substance therefore causing that substance to stay "intact" much longer. Just as important, Pu-238 has been proven to be fissionable and fissile, and with great pressure applied (millions of bars inside Saturn), this will lower its "critical mass" threshold. Research "fractional crit" for more on this.

The initial fusion reaction (brought on by a fissioning of Pu) is substantial but temporary (minutes to hours) as the reaction is initially fueled by Saturn's hydrogen and is much hotter than any Earth reaction of the same because the "holding resistance effect" of Saturn's pressure on the reaction wanting to press out immediately is significant; this substantially raises the temperature of the reaction. On Earth such a reaction would relieve itself immediately into the surrounding space, but inside Saturn it is held in by additional fractions of a second; in nuclear reaction terms, a lengthy additional time is added.

The sequence below shows how the "genie" can be released as Saturn's center under immense pressure is rapidly vaporized (massive increase in volume) and forced upward. Much more intense than "magma escaping at Krakatoa", the guts of Saturn shoot upward!