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Jupiter's Primordial Past Reveals Interesting Facts About its Mass, Strong Magnetic Field; Was it Twice the Size and 50x the Power? [Find Out]

A new study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, revealed a very interesting discovery about the planet Jupiter. According to our current models, the Gas Giant has always played a vital role in the evolution of the Solar System. While the scientists were trying to understand how the early Solar System evolved, they conducted a detailed study of Jupiter's primordial state as it will be a steppingstone in the process. Konstantin Batygin, professor of planetary science at Caltech; and Fred C. Adams, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Michigan; provided a detailed look into Jupiter's primordial state and their calculations revealed that Jupiter was significantly larger and had an even more powerful magnetic field, roughly 3.8 million years after the solar system's first solids formed was dissipating. Original Size Was Around Twice Its Current Radius Batygin said, "Our ultimate goal is to understand where we come from, and pinning down the early phases of planet formation is essential to solving the puzzle," adding, "This brings us closer to understanding how not only Jupiter, but the entire solar system took shape." In order to answer this question, Batygin and Adams looked at Jupiter's small moons, Amalthea and Thebe, which orbit even closer to the planet than Io, the smallest and closest of the four big Galilean moons. According to Batygin and Adams, Jupiter's original size was around twice its current radius, with a predicted volume equal to more than 2,000 Earths. This was determined by analyzing the modest orbital tilts of Amalthea and Thebe. Additionally, the scientists discovered that Jupiter's magnetic field was almost 50 times stronger back then than it is now. Highlighting the remarkable imprint the past has left on today's solar system, Adams said, "It's astonishing that even after 4.5 billion years, enough clues remain to let us reconstruct Jupiter's physical state at the dawn of its existence." Crucially, these discoveries were made possible by independent constraints that circumvent the conventional uncertainties in planetary formation models, which frequently depend on hypotheses on the bulk of the heavy element core, accretion rate, or gas opacity. Evolution Of Other Stars Rather, the team concentrated on directly quantifiable quantities, such as the conservation of the planet's angular momentum and the orbital dynamics of Jupiter's moons. Their research provided a vivid image of Jupiter at the critical juncture when the solar nebula surrounding it evaporated, marking the end of the building blocks needed to make planets and the locking in of the solar system's primordial design. The findings provided an important new information to the current theories of planet formation, which postulate that core accretion—the rapid accumulation of gas by a rocky and icy core—is how Jupiter and other massive planets surrounding other stars evolved. Numerous scholars, notably Dave Stevenson of Caltech, the Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Planetary Science, Emeritus, worked for decades to build these fundamental models. By offering more precise measurements of Jupiter's size, spin rate, and magnetic conditions at an early, crucial moment, this new study expands on that basis. Although there is still mystery around Jupiter's early history, Batygin noted that the present discovery greatly improves our understanding of the planet's crucial evolutionary phases. He said, "What we've established here is a valuable benchmark," adding, "A point from which we can more confidently reconstruct the evolution of our solar system."