Chapter 53, Pressure Cooker Summary

Dr. van der Berg explains that a 1981 paper in Nature magazine proposes the possibility of an enormous diamond being at the center of giant gas planets, such as Jupiter. Pressure from the enormously thick atmosphere compresses carbon in the atmosphere into a solid diamond core, according to the theory. When Jupiter ignited into Lucifer, a tremendous implosion occurred and probably cracked apart the round diamond core into mountain-shaped fragments. One of these fragments must have fallen on Europa.

Chapter 53, Pressure Cooker Analysis

The straight exposition about how Mount Zeus came into existence satisfies the science side of science fiction. The premise that mountains of diamond can result from the formation of suns from gaseous giant planets might have been the impetus for the book. It is the central event that brings humans onto the surface of Europa to discover...