Friday, December 5, 2008

New Model of Jupiter's Core Ignites Planet Birth Debate

Just in time for Christmas: Jupiter has a bigger heart than anyone thought. Jupiter is co cool.




A new computer model suggests that Jupiter's rock-ice core is more than twice as big as thought, supporting a theory that planetary cores form as smaller pieces of rock and ice collide and merge.

Underneath its swirling cloud layers, Jupiter may harbor a solid core roughly equal in mass to 16 Earths—more than twice as large as previously believed. That's the conclusion of a controversial new computer simulation that represents the first radical rethinking of the planet's core in nearly two decades.

... "We concluded that the planet formed by core accretion," when colliding grains of dust, ice, and small planetary bodies meld to create planetary embryos and eventually fully formed planets.

... The study comes just about two years ahead of a recently approved NASA mission called Juno that may finally put an end to the decades-long dispute.  - natgeo

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