Posted on 04/05/2012 2:15:27 AM PDT by U-238
Jupiter might be having a change of heart. Literally.
New simulations suggest that Jupiter's rocky core has been liquefying, melting, and mixing with the rest of the planet's innards. With this new data, astronomers hope to better explain a recent puzzling discovery of a strange planet outside of our solar system.
"It's a really important piece of the puzzle of trying to figure out what's going on inside giant planets," said Jonathan Fortney, a planetary scientist at the University of California Santa Cruz who was not affiliated with the research.
Conventional planetary formation theory has modeled Jupiter as a set of neat layers with a gassy outer envelope surrounding a rocky core consisting of heavier elements. But increasing evidence has indicated that the insides of gas giants like Jupiter are a messy mixture of elements without strictly defined borders.
This new research on a melting Jovian core bolsters a mixing model of gas giant planets and would provide another avenue for heavier elements to flow throughout the planet.
"People have been working on the assumption that these planets are layered because it's easier to work on this assumption," said Hugh Wilson, a planetary scientist at the University of California Berkeley and a coauthor of the new research appearing in Physical Review Letters.
Although scientists had previously toyed with the idea of melting cores in large planets, nobody sat down and did the necessary calculations, said Wilson.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
ping
It definitely needs to be dealt with.
call Al Gore.Its evidence of global warming.
? What? :)
A global tax must be imposed on all inhabitants of Earth to solve this problem. We must send a huge space mission there to suck up all greenhouse gases and reduce warming so we can SAVE JUPITER! This will be a major issue in the upcoming elections and we have to respond to this looming disaster.
Bush’s fault.
It’s posterity, We all need this planet;)You are to blame when something goes wrong.
Call me when they prove it.
If we lose Jupiter. . . . . . . . . . . It’s Over. . . .
Which part melted?
Hmmmm, trial by fire...coming to a planet near here...
makes me wonder if there is an electrical type flow between the sun and the planets, like transformers overheating when too much current is passed through them...
now if we could tap that for energy we may onto something..
Hmmmm, trial by fire...coming to a planet near here...
makes me wonder if there is an electrical type flow between the sun and the planets, like transformers overheating when too much current is passed through them...
now if we could tap that for energy we may be onto something..
It looks to me like more evidence that global warming is caused by the Sun.
And I nominate you to be the one to do it!
I would volunteer to leave this rock.
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