Jupiter 'swallowed up planet ten times size of Earth in massive collision'

Found this article and found it intresting. Kind of makes you wonder about the theories of nibiru (along the lines of other planets being present a long time ago).

Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system because it swallowed up a smaller rival before it could grow any bigger, scientists believe.

Source

It also makes one wonder just how many planets could form in a solar system, and how many it would take to form these monsterous planets. Intresting stuff.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by Xcathdra]

Interesting.

I would be cool I think to have a Solar System with maybe 40+ planets!
Wouldn't that be cool to see all those and the cool eclipses? There would be one so often!

reply to post by gpena


The implications with this discovery could be game changing in the way we think solar systems form, as well as how planets can change the makeup of the planets within the developing system.

Anyone know what the largest planet count there is? If I remeber right from NASA-JPL site (planetfinder) it was 6 detected in a single solar system (not binary).

I am curious though if these larger planets absorb smaller ones, changing the way the larger planets operate, if it could lead to a moon being habitble due to the magentic field / core changes. If possible, this could dramatically change the goldilocks zone, opening up the possibility of a larger group of hospitable planets.

I still think I was born in the wrong time period.. I would prefer to be stydying this stuff from a science vessel in orbit, rather than telescopes.

reply to post by Xcathdra


Yeh i think living in space and exploring the universe would be fantastic!
Wish humanity would get its act together and get moving on space travel!

I wish Star Trek was real. What a cool life, exploring the Universe and all of that. Sure there is war but at least it wasn't between ourselves.

I wonder if the movies 2001 and 2010 were right. Will aliens cause Jupiter to turn into a second sun.

I'm still curious how they determine the cores mass? I'm sure there is a lot of complex math but it's still just a guess I suppose.

Originally posted by misuneko
reply to post by Xcathdra

 

Yeh i think living in space and exploring the universe would be fantastic!
Wish humanity would get its act together and get moving on space travel!

I think we are on that track as we speak. With the number of countries announcing plans for their own space programs, I think its only a matter of time before we move to a global space agency.

We are already cooperating with the Russians for missions to Mars, and the UK announced their plans to enter the space program on their own terms. Couple that with the chinese, japanese, Indians, Iran etc. I think in this case, having the Chinses pushing towars a moon base as well as having the political will to make it happen, will force everyone else on board or be left in the dust.

There seems to be a lot of internation projects starting to take shape lately (new fusion reactor project announced - global cooperation). Hopefully these will start to pay off to the point it will be within our reach to visit some of these planets in person.

I dont know about you, but I would rather see Jupiter with my own eyes, rather than a stream of telemetry data. Being able to actually see how large Jupiter is first hand, then visualizing a planet 10 times the size of Earth being absorbed by it would be awesome.

[edit on 12-8-2010 by Xcathdra]

reply to post by DEEZNUTZ


I thought gas giants were stars that failed to ignite. As far as the Star Trek comment, we could achieve that if we could move beyond our petty squabbles against each other.

You could always take that, inability for us to get along, as a possible reason that we have not been contacted by extraterretrials yet. Why waste the time to make contact with a planet that is perceived as factional. If we cant grasp the concept we live on the same planet, in an ocean of infinity, and what we do here affects people over there, then the assumption would be we would not get along with others in the galaxy.

As far as how to weigh a planet, I found this article. Not sure of the accuracy of it but it looks close to what I remeber:

How to weigh a planet

Originally posted by Xcathdra
The implications with this discovery

It doesn't seem like a discovery to me, just speculation. They can say Jupiter swallowed a 10 earth mass planet, someone else can claim Jupiter swallowed 3 planets of 3-4 solar masses each, while someone else can claim that Jupiter formed that way without swallowing any planets.

Nobody's got any proof, it's just speculation and simulation, not really discovery.

But chances seem good there were more than 8 planets when the solar system formed. Something big collided with Earth to form the Earth's moon. and there were probably other big objects too that we no longer see, so I do suspect Jupiter swallowed some up. But I don't see anything these researchers did that is really convincing. They say it might have happened, and yes it might, but I think we all knew that before they ran a simulation.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


You really threw some sunshine down my friend lol. Either way some valid points. We are still learning about our solar system and what makes it tick, how it was formed etc. Apparently based on what we know, we still dont hvae all of the puzzle pieces.

The theory that Jupiter swallowed up planets / dwarf planets is intresting in many aspects. It makes one wonder exactly how much dust/debris/etc makes up a solar system. It makes one wonder, if this theory is true, how many planets actually form, or can form, in a solar system.

So while I agree that this is speculation that requires further testing, its still a fascinating suggestion / theory / speculation that could help us understand better how solar systems form.

...and to think just a few hundred years ago we thought the earth was the center of the universe.

Most scientists think Jupiter is too small to start fusion, but I'm not so sure. I get the feeling someday this solar system may be a bit brighter...

Nothing swallowed anything.

Jupiter acquired its own core through marklund convection.

The moons of Jupiter were predominately created by Jupiter as it spit them out in discharge events.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Nothing swallowed anything.

Jupiter acquired its own core through marklund convection.

The moons of Jupiter were predominately created by Jupiter as it spit them out in discharge events.

At the risk of sounding stupid could you explain this in lamens terms? I looked up the Marklund convection and it talks about plasma convection causing chemical seperation.

The other question I have is why would this not be possible? There are theories about another planet / large object hitting earth and creating the moon. Would it not be possible for a planet to hit Jupiter and be absorbed / crushed by it as its pulled in?

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
someone else can claim that Jupiter formed that way without swallowing any planets. .

Originally posted by mnemeth1
Nothing swallowed anything.

Am I psychic, or what?

I don't think we can refute that claim with the simulation these researchers ran.

Researchers from Peking University in China have modeled what may have happened in the wake of the collision.

It might have happened, it also might have not happened. I'm not convinced by their model. I'm more convinced by evidence of a chaotic early history in the solar system (massive ancient craters on Earth's moon and other objects in the solar system). If that many objects are floating around, Jupiter is bound to swallow some of them up, as it did when it swallowed shoemaker-Levy-9 in 1994 releasing an amount of energy approximately 600 times the entire world's nuclear arsenal on just one impact, out of 21 impacts observed:

en.wikipedia.org...

So we know Jupiter swallowed something, we saw it (21 things). But did Jupiter swallow an ancient planet? I suspect probably so, but the evidence presented by the researcher's simulation falls far short of any kind of convincing proof.

[edit on 13-8-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Xcathdra


"scientists believe"! yet again! they have no real proof and they should collectively take their hand off it. as they explore space they actually have more questions than answers. chuck this theory in the basket with big bang and many others.

At some point during a close approach to Jupiter, Saturn became unstable; and, as a result of the influx of extraneous material, it exploded, flaring as a nova which, after subsiding, left a remnant that the ancients still recognized as Saturn, even though it was but a fraction of the celestial body of earlier days. In Saturn’s explosion much of the matter absorbed earlier was thrown off into space. Saturn was greatly reduced in size and removed to a distant orbit—the binary system was broken up and Jupiter took over the dominant position in the sky.

Got stuff from Saturn

The Saturn explosion recorded in history days before The Flood,
which was also recorded and observed by the ancients.
So if Saturn was a water planet then perhaps Jupiter took on more
gasses and Saturn took rocks and moons and ring in the passage
by Jupiter. Jupiter losing some rocks. And don't forget one big electrical
lightning bolt might do the whole thing all at once. Changing orbits as well.

Originally posted by SmokeandShadow
Most scientists think Jupiter is too small to start fusion, but I'm not so sure. I get the feeling someday this solar system may be a bit brighter...

No, not too small

Not heavy enough. Its mass is far to light to cause fusion, therefore remained a planet

jups core is metallic hydrogen.


kinda 1 stage past liquid hydrogen.

interesting stuff.

very shiny. needs lots of pressure tho.

next 10000 miles could be a pure diamond core.

eventually we will find out.

edit-don't know what to say about my statement. guess diamond trumps metallic hydrogen.







[edit on 13-8-2010 by fooks]

Originally posted by Xcathdra

At the risk of sounding stupid could you explain this in lamens terms? I looked up the Marklund convection and it talks about plasma convection causing chemical seperation.

The other question I have is why would this not be possible? There are theories about another planet / large object hitting earth and creating the moon. Would it not be possible for a planet to hit Jupiter and be absorbed / crushed by it as its pulled in?

Jupiter, at one point in its distant past, must have been a discharging brown dwarf star.

Creation of heavy elements occurs in stars. For example, the fusion that scientists say is taking place in the solar core is actually taking place in the solar corona. This is where temperatures reach 2 million K and particle acceleration occurs.

This fusion of light elements results in a large amount of carbon and heavier elements, such as iron. These heavy elements are convected to the core of the star through marklund convection where they accumulate into a solid sphere.

These solid spheres are what make up solid body moons and planets.

During an intense electrical discharge event, a brown dwarf may discharge its core.

Of course, this is just a theory. However, its a more reasonable theory than thinking moons formed in place around planets and that colliding planets give gas giants their apparent mass.

I don't feel like writing a 20 page dissertation on planet formation, so watch the videos in this post instead:

fascistsoup.com...

Originally posted by DEEZNUTZ
I wish Star Trek was real. What a cool life, exploring the Universe and all of that.

Just don't beam down to any planet's surface in a red shirt.....

The color of shirt worn by the nameless security personnel on the original Star Trek series. Their only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, sped up and killed, frozen, desalinated, or turned into a cube and crushed. Their death would give William Shatner and De Forest Kelley a corpse to emote over, and Leonard Nimoy a corpse to, well, not emote over.

tvtropes.org...


[edit on 14-8-2010 by Danbones]

In what strange world.... ehrrr.... Solar System we live in?