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The BepiColombo mission, a joint project by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), got within only 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Mercury’s crater-strewn surface. …
Jupiter’s innards are full of the remains of baby planets that the
gas giant gobbled up as it expanded to become the behemoth we see today,
scientists have found. The findings come from the first clear view of
the chemistry beneath the planet’s cloudy outer atmosphere.
Despite being the largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter has divulged very little about its inner workings. Telescopes have captured thousands of images of the swirling vortex clouds in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, but these Van Gogh-esque storms also act as a barrier blocking our view of what’s below.
“Jupiter was one of the first planets to form in our solar system,”
in the first few million years after the solar system took shape around
4.5 billion years ago, lead researcher Yamila Miguel, an astrophysicist
at Leiden University in The Netherlands, told Live Science. However, we
know almost nothing for certain about how it formed, she added.
In the new study, researchers were finally able to peer past Jupiter’s
obscuring cloud cover using gravitational data collected by NASA’s Juno
space probe. This data enabled the team to map out the rocky material at
the core of the giant planet, which revealed a surprisingly high
abundance of heavy elements. The chemical make-up suggests Jupiter
devoured baby planets, or planetesimals, to fuel its expansive growth.
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A new study led by University of
Arizona researchers may have solved two mysteries that have long puzzled
paleo-climate experts: Where did the ice sheets that rang in the last
ice age more than 100,000 years ago come from, and how could they grow
so quickly? …
