Comments on: Jupiter Could Have Earth-like Rocky Core

By: Tiki

Tiki — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:41:58 +0000

U GUYZ SUCK!!! HAHAHHAHA IM DOING A REPORT ON JUPITER!!!

By: wibby lyrics

wibby lyrics — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:45:48 +0000

thats very nice photo.. ilove jupiter.. i wanna live in there..

By: Kemp

Kemp — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:40:32 +0000

For what it's worth I'll quickly say that I believe that Jupiter has a mega ocean of liquid water , the surface of which lies about 180 miles below the visible cloud tops. I base this upon the results of the Galileo probe, the Shoemaker-Levy Comet impact observations, and my research into the equations of state– as poorly known as they are. After years of gas giant baloney it doesn't surprise me that they now talk about ice on top of a rocky core. My main point is that if any planet has liquid water oceans it is surely Jupiter (and Saturn for that matter). I am quite sure that Jupiter is rife with life. Even without oceans! Look at the colors and the details in the atmosphere. And as algae and life have even affected the plate tectonics of this planet so goes the layers of Jupiter.
People go on and on about life on Jupiters moons—look at the planet folks! I hope the next probe we send in has cameras on a gradually descending balloon . And I don't think it was neccessary to ditch Galileo and it's plutonium packs into the planet the way they did! A rather cavalier and wreckless an action.

By: neil

neil — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:41:52 +0000

zachb: i was just trying to be funny ya douche

By: jerry

jerry — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:05:53 +0000

quote=Bill "This tells me that analyses of spacecraft trajectories are insufficient to determine the internal mass distribution of planets, otherwise, with the flybys of the Pioneers 10 & 11, Voyager 1 & 2 and New Horizons, and the long-term orbiting of Galileo, this distribution would have been pinned down more precisely."
Precisely. We can't pin down the love numbers on Jupiter or Mars.

I suspect this new model is motivated by the growing number of observations that tell us the outer solar system is littered with heavy elements.

By: zachb

zachb — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:51:38 +0000

Vague: Ice is ice, and its solid.

Neil: Can we see the results from your dog turd simulation? Or are you just a sarcastic moron?

By: Vagueofgodalming

Vagueofgodalming — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:42:48 +0000

While 'rock', 'ice', 'metal' etc. are correct in terms of chemical composition, I think they're misleading in terms of physical state: thus, by 'ice' they mean 'superheated steam', and the equivalent for the other components.

I don't think this work implies a solid surface, just that the composition of the hot fluid changes as you go down, and more of the total would be made of heavy elements than was previously thought.

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:33:14 +0000

I find it hard to understand how Jupiter COULDN'T have a rocky/metalic core. It is, after all, a humungous gravity well: a garbage pail for the solar system. Given that we have actually WATCHED a comet disintegrate under it's gravitational influence, and then enter the Jovian atmosphere, and given that there have been some 4+ BILLION years for this to have happened over anc over and over and over again, it would seem OBVIOUS that any stony/metallic bits and pieces would collect "at the bottom".

If, as seems to be the case, the early solar system had a whole lot of "trash" – planetesmals, etc. "roaming around", why shouldn't Jupiter have collected its fair share? That is, if it didn't start out with a whole lot of solids to begin with…

By: Ross

Ross — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:49:41 +0000

Ice…..On Jupiter…..Right. Next thing you know, computers will be saying theres lakes of ice on the sun.

By: Yael Dragwyla

Yael Dragwyla — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:47:11 +0000

I will never forget Chesley Bonestell's exquisite illustrations of the surface of Jupiter, i.e., on that rocky core, or Clifford Simak's stories of transformed dogs and men gamboling joyously on Jupiter. These new models of Jupiter's core, i.e., solid surface, bring them to life all over again.

By: Extrasolar Flapjacks

Extrasolar Flapjacks — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:38:06 +0000

I knew it.

By: Dark Gnat

Dark Gnat — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:57:45 +0000

I have long suspected that Jupiter has a rather large rocky-metal core. It would seem to me that a massive ball of rock and metal would have an easier time accumulating hydrogen, especially since jupiter has large rocky moons that have apparently been there just as long.

This may help to determine the minimum mass required to keep a thick hydrogen/helium atmosphere, which can help us figure out the composition of certain extrasolar planets.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:11:04 +0000

This tells me that analyses of spacecraft trajectories are insufficient to determine the internal mass distribution of planets, otherwise, with the flybys of the Pioneers 10 & 11, Voyager 1 & 2 and New Horizons, and the long-term orbiting of Galileo, this distribution would have been pinned down more precisely. I had thought this knowledge to be better in hand. So apparently we can conduct highly precise celestial billiards with our spacecraft without detailed knowledge of the internal planetary mass distributions.

By: Huygens

Huygens — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:51:19 +0000

But wait – in the Arthur C. Clarke 2001 novels, a giant piece of the diamond core of Jupiter wedges itself into some of the Galilean moons after the planet is turned into a sun by the Monolith ETI.

Are you saying that Clarke novels are just science fiction?

When I was a kid, Jupiter's core was surrounded by ice thousands of miles thick, so it's nice to have some of my childhood back thanks to modern science.

By: Gerald, Walnut Creek, CA

Gerald, Walnut Creek, CA — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:00:27 +0000

Not to pick nits, but your image scaling is a little off. Jupiter's diameter is 11.2 times that of Earth. Your image has it scaled at about 15 to 16 times Earth's diameter.

By: Kendall

Kendall — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:57:53 +0000

I wonder if any studies have addressed rock and metal in the core of the sun… Sure, the sun fuses hydrogen to helium, but if the debris ring around the sun contained enough solid debris to form planets with metal cores, the sun should have a rocky and metallic core sitting underneath those processes… shouldn't it?

By: neil

neil — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:58:00 +0000

I just don't trust results based on computer simulations. You can get any results you want. I just ran my own simulation that strongly points to Jupiter's core being composed of a giant dog turd.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:51:49 +0000

Nope, Jupiter isnt nearly massive enough to create a material with the density of a diamond. Study shows that several white dwarf stars however do have diamond-like material at their core. I quote:

Scientific evidence indicates that white dwarf stars have a core of crystallized carbon and oxygen nuclei. The largest of these found in the universe so far, BPM 37093, is located 50 light years away in the constellation Centaurus. A news release from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics described the 2,500 mile-wide stellar core as a diamond.

By: byron

byron — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:33:14 +0000

I think this is fascinating. With so much pressure on the core, would it not be materials we have never seen? A huge diamond?