The mysteries around Jupiter are as big as the planet size we have very little idea about this
planet's inner workings and we have next to nothing of an idea of just how it was formed
except that it was perhaps the very first planet to form in our solar system
the swirling vortex clouds that surround Jupiter and give it a van gogh style art piece appearance
shroud its mysteries underneath away from the reach of our telescopes
however there has been a massive breakthrough lately and researchers were able to uncover
a horrifying truth about the origins of the planet that is colored like an easter egg we must warn
you the reason behind jupiter's massive size is not for the faint of heart welcome to Factnomenal
and today we will reveal the dark secret jupiter has been hiding from us about its origins
for years researchers have speculated that the fourth brightest thing in our sky after the sun
the moon and venus jupiter might have a core of sorts the big brother of the earth was perhaps
the first ever planet that was formed in our solar system and it must have a core made of
superheated rock under high pressure the juno probe is equipped with devices that can measure
the gravity field of the planet that speak to the distribution of mass deep inside jupiter
this gravitational data helped researchers to peer past jupiter's obscuring cloud cover
and map out the rocky material at the core of the giant planet which revealed a surprisingly
high abundance of heavy elements looking at it astrophysicists found a startling discovery of
the planet's origin that could have very well been a dwarf star the chemical makeup suggests
jupiter devoured baby planets or plantessimals to fuel its expensive growth
it is a possibility that just like every other planet in the solar system jupiter started its
life by accreting rocky material when the solar system took shape around 4.5 billion years ago
then how come it became a ball of predominantly swirling gas as we know it today as the planet's
gravity pulled in more and more rocks the rocky core became so dense that it started pulling in
large amounts of gas from far distances to form its enormous gas-filled atmosphere predominantly
these gases were hydrogen and helium that were left over from the sun's birth till now the
compelling theory regarding the early formation of jupiter was that jupiter aggregated its initial
rocky material piece by piece and pebble by pebble billions of small space rocks to form its core
mind you the term pebble is used loosely here when astrophysicists say pebble in terms of space rocks
they actually mean rocks that are likely closer in size to boulders rather than actual pebbles
this method of planet formation is known as disk accretion and it works quite accurately with the
formation of terrestrial planets but scientists have difficulty reconciling it with giant planets
like jupiter a few years ago another theory of disk instability improved on the idea of disc
accretion when it comes to gas giants weighing in at 2.5 times the mass of the rest of the solar
system planets jupiter played an important role in the formation and evolution of its siblings
disk instability proposed that jupiter may have moved around in the early stages of the
solar system stirring up material the complex dance of the king of planets may have directly
influenced the formation of mars and played a role in the bombardment of the rocky planets
while rocky planets have plenty of time to build up their heavier atmospheres or collect them from
material crashing into the planet the atmospheres of gas giants are too light and disappear too
quickly for instance jupiter is composed almost completely of hydrogen with about 10 percent of
its volume made up of helium small traces of other elements exist in jupiter's atmosphere as well
but most of its mass is held by these two basic elements scientists had to look for a new theory
behind the way the larger planets were built according to the disk instability theory clumps of
dust and gas are bound together early in the life of the solar system over time these clumps slowly
compact into a giant planet these planets can form faster than their core accretion rivals sometimes
in as little as a thousand years allowing them to trap the rapidly vanishing lighter gases
they also quickly reach an orbit stabilizing mass that keeps them from death marching
into the sun the frequent collisions caused the temperatures to elevate
on jupiter which led to the dense material sinking to the center and forming the core
however juno's data has contradictory evidence to offer jupiter was perhaps a hungry hungry
hippo in its early days and it fed on many other potential planets in the making to form its core
juno's data revealed that jupiter's core was formed from the absorption of many planetesimals
planetesimals are large space rocks spanning several miles which if left undisturbed could
have potentially acted as seeds from which smaller rocky planets like earth or mars could develop
to find the answer to the mystery of jupiter's birth researchers needed to dive deep into
jupiter's inside and create a picture of what jupiter looks like beneath his surface
on earth the insides of our planet can be studied with the help of seismographs
when earthquakes happen but seismographs are unfortunately useless on jupiter as it has no
solid surface to place the device also frankly jupiter's core is not likely to have as much
tectonic activity as earth anyways so the researchers needed the gravitational data
from the giant planet so they could create computer models of jupiter and its insides
this is why we needed juno but the probe wasn't the first to work on jupiter's core
juno's predecessor galileo had already collected some data which could be considered a trial run
both probes measured the planet's gravitational field at different points around its orbit
the data showed that rocky material accreted by jupiter has a high concentration of heavy elements
which form dense solids and therefore have a stronger gravitational effect than the gaseous
atmosphere this data enabled the team to map out slight variations in the planet's gravity
which helped them to see where the rocky material is located on the planet scientists were amazed
at how accurate juno was with the gravity data that it provided it helped them to constrain the
distribution of material hidden in the depths of jupiter after the models of jupiter's core were
computed and rendered astronomers calculated that there is an equivalent of between 11 and
30 earth masses of heavy elements within jupiter which comprise three to nine percent of jupiter's
entire mess this was mind-blowing because this exceeded any expectations researchers had
what they had discovered wasn't just the planet's core but the belly of a magnanimous beast that
possibly devoured the embryos of many planets to be a graveyard of planets that were never born
so is it true was jupiter a thyestean planet that devoured its potential brothers and sisters
before it calmed down and allowed other planets to flourish in the solar system
well for a fact planetesimal gobbling theory does offer to fill in the gaps that pebble
accretion theory couldn't perceiving jupiter as a planetesimal-munching primordial planet
does explain the presence of such a high concentration of heavy elements in its core
if jupiter had initially formed from pebbles the eventual onset of the gas secretion process
would have immediately ended the rocky accretion stage after the planet was large enough this
is because the growing layer of gas would have created a pressure barrier that stopped additional
pebbles from being pulled inside the planet this curtailed rocky accretion phase would have greatly
reduced heavy metal abundance or metallicity on jupiter than what the researchers have calculated
but there's yet another explanation planetesimals could have hooked onto jupiter's core even after
the gas secretion phase had begun that is so because the gravitational pull on the rocks would
have been greater than the pressure exerted by the gas researchers believe that the explanation
of simultaneous accretion of rocky material and gas offered by the planetesimal theory is
the only explanation for the high levels of heavy elements within jupiter juno's gravitational data
has provided another interesting discovery that jupiter's insides do not mix well into its upper
atmosphere this finding has forced scientists to change their assumption about jupiter that
convection mixed up the planet's atmosphere in a way that hotter gas near the planet's core would
rise to the outer atmosphere before cooling and falling back down if that were the case the heavy
elements would be more evenly mixed throughout the atmosphere instead the heavy elements the planet
has absorbed have remained largely close to its core and the lower atmosphere however
it is possible that certain regions of jupiter may have a small convection effect
that is why more research is needed to determine exactly what is going on inside the gas giant's
atmosphere if the planetesimal munching theory proved to be right this will change everything we
know about the origin of our universe and we may find similar stories hidden in the past of saturn
uranus and neptune as well tell us in the comments how different you think our solar
system would have been if jupiter hadn't eaten so many potential planets out of existence
and as always thanks for watching Factnomenal do not forget to like share and subscribe