Well, I gotta laugh... not that I'm actually concerned about "stellating" Jupiter or Saturn.
I mean, scientists thought the extra neutron in Lithium-7 didn't matter, either. See Castle Bravo.
And according to what I read, there are only two known stellar fusion reactions, the CNO (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen) cycle, and the proton-proton (deuterium) reaction.
Note the "known."
I'm not signing this one so nobody will accuse me of being actually paranoid, when it's simply that I'm amused by the know-it-all arrogance of a lot of scientists.
Yeah, but the temperature ranges and pressures needed for fusion are well known, and there's lower limits even for the "trick" forms of fusion. Or the isotopes etc. needed for the "trick" forms of fusion don't exist in sufficient abundance in nature. And of course the Plutonium in an RTG wouldn't ever go critical during entry, it'll just burn up and erode away. And Pu 238 that's used in RTG's is the wrong kind for a bomb, you need Pu 239 for that. And Pu 239 is no good for RTG's.
And of course, Shoemaker-Levy smacked Jupiter harder than the entire world's nuclear arsenal detonated at once, and did that a dozen-odd times to boot. And nothing happened other than some black cloudy spots that dispersed in a few days.
Interesting fact, in terms of diameter/size, Jupiter is about as "big" as planets, even brown dwarfs, and the smallest M class red dwarf stars. Add about 8x Jupiter masses, and it'll be on the lower threshold for a brown dwarf, but still be roughly the same diameter. Add 80x Jupiter's mass in one spot, and you'll get a red dwarf star, but any of these objects won't be much more than 10% larger in volume max.
Jupiter is already crushing it's interior into liquid/metallic hydrogen, so when you imagine the proverbial "5lbs of crap in a 3lb sack" scenario of having 8x to 80X of Jupiter's mass all stuffed in close to the same volume, and on the high end of that you've got a star undergoing fusion, you realize how hot and dense the insides of stars are. And why the photons produced by the fusion take anywhere from 4000 to 1,000,000 (free mean path for the photons means there's going to be a statistical spread...) years to escape into space.