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The largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, may have had a massive collision with a "planet in formation" about 4.5 billion years ago, according to a new study.
Research, published in Nature, suggests that the impact is probably behind the enigmatic gravitational readings of NASA's Juno spacecraft, which observe that the Jupiter core is less dense and wider than expected.
"It's curious," said Andrea Isella, astronomer and co-author of Rice, in a statement. "This suggests that something has happened that has stirred up the kernel, and that's where the giant impact comes in."
A rendering shows the effect of a major impact on the heart of a young Jupiter, as suggested by scientists Rice and Sun Yat-sen universities. They say the collision that occurred about 4.5 billion years ago could explain surprising readings from NASA 's Juno spacecraft. (Credit: Shang-Fei Liu University / Sun Yat-sen)
MYSTERIOUS CURRENT ALTERNATIVES FOUND ON JUPITER
Isella, along with several other researchers, have done computer simulations to try to explain this mysterious core and think that the planet that struck Jupiter, which many consider a rocky or icy planet, was huge, about ten times bigger than the Earth. The so-called "planetary embryo" that Jupiter could have swallowed could have occurred during the first million years of Jupiter's formation.
"The only scenario that has resulted in a core density profile similar to what Juno is measuring today is a frontal impact with a planetary embryo about 10 times larger than Earth's," added Shang-Fei Liu, principal author of the study, statement.
The team made a video to show the impact of the violence.
It may have taken "many, many billions of years for the heavy material to fall into a dense core in the circumstances suggested by the document," Isella added.
"It seemed very unlikely," said Isella, adding that it was "a probability over a trillion dollars." But Shang-Fei [Liu] I've convinced, by shear calculation, that it was not so improbable. "
An infrared color composite of Jupiter was created from images taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft in 2007. (Source: NASA / Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Goddard Space Flight Center)
Shear refers to strength and stress.
NASA's Juno spacecraft has orbited the celestial giant since 2016 and passes over the two polar regions of the planet every 53 days.
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