This is a finding that supports the bottom-up method of planet formation for the giant gas-shrouded world.
“This brings us closer to understanding how not only Jupiter but the entire Solar System took shape.”
Their results showed that Jupiter had a period of rapid, intense growth early in the history of the Solar System.
Just 3.8 million years after the first solids emerged, Jupiter’s volume was at least twice its current volume.
Even with a larger volume, Jupiter was never close to massive enough to achieve star status.
Jupiter is already the largest planet in the Solar System, with a mass that is two to five times that of all the other planets put together.
The largest planet in the Solar System used to be even larger, so get ready to have your mind blown. According to new calculations, astronomers Fred Adams of the University of Michigan and Konstantin Batygin of Caltech estimate that early Jupiter may have had up to twice or five times its current volume.
Based on their analysis of two of Jupiter’s moons, the researchers discovered that Jupiter had a volume that was two to two-and-a-half times its current size and a much stronger magnetic field just 3 to 8 million years after the first solid materials in the Solar System formed.
The bottom-up approach to planet formation for the giant gas-shrouded world is supported by this finding.
Pinning down the early stages of planet formation is crucial to solving the puzzle of “where we come from,” which is Batygin’s ultimate goal. This advances our knowledge of how the Solar System as a whole, not just Jupiter, formed. “.”.
In our opinion, rocky worlds such as Earth, Mars, Venus, and Mercury form from the bottom up, with a distinct core and all, as a result of a slow buildup of rocks and dust. We call this core accretion.
Although gas giants are believed to begin similarly, they have enough gravity to hold onto a sizable gas envelope and start to accumulate it once they reach a certain mass, about ten times that of Earth. Since there wouldn’t be enough material closer to the Sun to accumulate the large core, this process is believed to have occurred in the outer Solar System.
Planetary scientists are very interested in the details of Jupiter’s birth and growth because it is believed that its formation and evolution were crucial to the development of the Solar System’s architecture. But since we can’t simply go back in time, we must try to reconstruct the past by looking at what is happening right now.
Usually, this entails building a model based on standard models of planet formation gathered from observing planetary systems (including our own) throughout the Milky Way. But these models tend to leave a lot of room for uncertainty because they rely heavily on conjecture and making connections.
A different strategy was used by Batygin and Adams, who examined the orbital movements of two small Jovian moons, Amalthea and Thebe, which orbit the planet very closely—closer than Io’s orbit. These small moons have skewed orbits with respect to Jupiter’s equator.
According to earlier research, these tilts can be used to trace the orbital history of these small moons back in time. Using that orbital history, Batygin and Adams were able to piece together Jupiter’s early evolution.
“Even after 4 and a half billion years,” Adams remarks, “there are still enough hints that allow us to reconstruct Jupiter’s physical state at the beginning of its existence.”. “.”.
According to their findings, Jupiter experienced a phase of intense, quick growth early in the Solar System’s history. Jupiter had a volume at least twice that of today only 3–8 million years after the first solids formed.
Additionally, its magnetic field was 50 times stronger than it is today, which allowed for an accretion rate of between 1 and 2 Jupiter masses per million years from a disk of material feeding into the planet. During this period of rapid growth, the planet underwent development and began its journey to become the Jupiter that it is today.
The planet itself shrank under its own gravity, decreasing its volume and speeding up its rotation as the material surrounding Jupiter finally dissipated. Even now, Jupiter’s core is compressed and heated, losing energy as a result of the planet’s declining surface and interior temperatures.
Jupiter was never nearly as massive as a star, even with a larger volume. To start core hydrogen fusion, which is a characteristic that distinguishes all stars, it would have to be at least 85 times as massive as it is now.
The team’s efforts have given us a new perspective on Jupiter and its place in the Solar System, where it is believed to have been crucial in keeping the planets stable enough for life to begin on Earth.
“We have set a valuable benchmark here,” Batygin states. “A point from which we can more securely piece together how our Solar System evolved. “..”.
