"It’s still unclear if Jupiter has a solid core at its center or is just one giant gaseous orb."
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd go for "C", a molten core.
Violent, powerful wind that lasts 100s of years. Yes, it's Jupiter, not you after a Friday night curry
The stripy bands on Jupiter are made from roaring winds that penetrate deep below its surface and circle round the entire planet. An international team of physicists studied the gas giant’s atmosphere by measuring its gravity field using using radio waves emitted by NASA’s Juno spacecraft during close flybys. Their results …
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Friday 9th March 2018 02:03 GMT the spectacularly refined chap
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd go for "C", a molten core.
"Gaseous" in this context is to be read as a supercritical fluid so the distinction between gas and liquid is not relevant.
On the other hand if there is any rocky component to the planet (it would appear inevitable in my view considering how much it must have swallowed up) the core must be solid. Even Earth's inner core is solid on account of the huge pressures involved and those inside Jupiter are far, far higher.
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Friday 9th March 2018 03:32 GMT Long John Brass
the huge pressures involved
I've seen one argument that this may not be the case! The argument goes that as the sun sparked up the lighter material was blown further out in the solar system, leaving the heavier stuff closer in.
This suggest even if there is iron in Jovian core there may not actually be much of it!
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Friday 9th March 2018 22:31 GMT Alan Brown
Re: the huge pressures involved
"The argument goes that as the sun sparked up the lighter material was blown further out in the solar system, leaving the heavier stuff closer in."
That argument assumes Jupiter formed where it is now - which is unlikely.
It also assumes planetforming didn't really get going until after the sun lit up, which is also unlikely.
Yes, when the sun fired up it blew the light gasses out - pretty much to the Oort cloud.
Iron is one of the most plentiful elements in the universe thanks to its position in the fusion table as the star destroyer. I'd be surprised if any planetesimal didn't have substantial proportions of the stuff and even the gas giants started out as rocky worlds before they grew big enough to start being gas brooms.
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Sunday 11th March 2018 02:22 GMT cray74
Re: the huge pressures involved
I thought most hot Jupiters migrate to the inner star system from further out?
Modern variations of the "Nice Model" include "Jumping Jupiter," which posits the solar system started in a denser configuration but after about 500 million years (the time of the Late Heavy Bombardment), movement of Neptune and Uranus (and potentially a 5th gas giant) adjusted Jupiter's and Saturn's orbits. Hilarity ensued as Jupiter and Saturn entered a resonance and drove the gas giants outwards. Debris in a much-denser proto-Kuiper Belt is the source of momentum to adjust planetary orbits.
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Friday 9th March 2018 10:09 GMT John Mangan
Could do with a 'key' to terms.
There are various words here used in non-obvious meanings (for anyone not familiar with Jovian physics). surface appears to be the top of the atmosphere (although there is no surface), the atmosphere has a depth (even though the planet is supposed to almost entirely gaseous - and admittedly this partly covered by the information that the 'ball' below the atmosphere appears to rotate synchronously as though a solid object - although this isn't described as the surface. Confusing.
Tremendous work though and fascinating. All Jovian stories remind me of a book cover I saw as a child (Possibly 'Farmer in the Sky' by Heinlein) showing the view of Jupiter from one of its moons (Ganymede?) filling the sky. Borrowed from the library, I think, so no longer in my possession.
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Friday 9th March 2018 12:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Jupiter’s gravity pulls on the spacecraft and shifts the wavelength of its radio signals by a small amount. The change in wavelength provides a way to indirectly calculate the planet’s gravity field and its atmospheric and interior flows.
The researchers found powerful wind belts that extend to a depth of about 3000 kilometers
Amazing what scientists can establish about an object billions of miles away.
The police on the other hand , cant catch a chav breaking into your greenhouse even if you give them HD cctv of the event.
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Friday 9th March 2018 22:33 GMT Alan Brown
"The police on the other hand , cant catch a chav breaking into your greenhouse even if you give them HD cctv of the event."
They also can't stop you posting that HD cctv to a few social media groups. The only way the chav in question can get it taken down is to be identified and there are DPA exemptions for recording of crime.
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Friday 9th March 2018 15:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Think it would be wonderful if Arthur C. Clarke was right
Just think, if that giant diamond was divided equally among all human beings, we'd all be quadrillionaires (or whatever) and everyone would be able to pull hot supermodels just by waving their diamond-encrusted iPhone XXX cases around!!! (Of course, we'd *all* be able to afford the iPhone XXX- price £43,000- because we'd be disgustingly rich.)
I keep getting all these economist types and 13-year-olds trying to say there's a problem with this reasoning, but they're idiots- anyone can see that if we all have more diamonds than Kim Kardashian, we'll be stinking rich!!!11
(Oh, and seriously, I know that even today diamonds aren't remotely as rare as De Beers would have you believe- nor would they be as "valuable" either if De Beers wasn't able to exploit its cartel position to restrict production.)
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Friday 9th March 2018 22:36 GMT Alan Brown
Re: Think it would be wonderful if Arthur C. Clarke was right
"I know that even today diamonds aren't remotely as rare as De Beers would have you believe"
They're extremely common, but 99.99% of the ones mined are only fit for industrial abrasive use - and it's cheaper to manufacture that than mine it.
Apparently DB destroy 50-90% of the gem-quality diamonds found (depending on the size range). The cartel has been slightly broken by russian and canadian producers but de Beers executives are still facing arrest warrants in the USA.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
