Jupiter turns out to be inhomogeneous metallicity gives clues | Astro Wonders

Jupiter turns out to be inhomogeneous metallicity gives clues about origin

An international team of astronomers led by Yamila Miguel (Leiden Observatory) has found that Jupiter's gaseous envelope doesn't have a homogeneous distribution. The inner part has more metals than the outer parts adding up to a total of between 11 and 30 earth masses meaning 3–9% of Jupiter's total mass. This is a high enough metallicity to conclude that kilometer-sized bodies—planetesimals—must have played a role in Jupiter's formation.

There are two mechanisms for a gas giant like Jupiter to acquire metals during its formation: through the accretion of small pebbles or larger planetesimals. We know that once a baby planet is big enough it starts pushing out pebbles. The richness of metals inside Jupiter that we see now is impossible to achieve before that. So we can exclude the scenario with only pebbles as solids during Jupiter's formation. Planetesimals are too big to be blocked so they must have played a role.
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