Sentences with phrase «rocky cores»

Some planets are so near their star that they are losing mass too rapidly to have been planets for very long.14 Besides, their rocky cores would have melted before the planet's evolution could begin.15 Others are too far from their star and the dust near the star needed to grow a planet.

Or, if gas giant planets like KELT - 9b possess solid rocky cores as some theories suggest, the planet may be boiled down to a barren rock, like Mercury.»

But in many instances, the simulations show, even planets starting with rocky cores as little as 1.5 Earth's mass may trap and hold atmospheres containing between 100 and 1000 times the amount of hydrogen found in the water in Earth's oceans — thick, dense envelopes exerting pressures so hellish that life on the planets» surfaces might be almost impossible.

But even in the cold of space, these wayward worlds could stay warm, thanks to the decay of radioactive elements in their rocky cores.

One controversial theory posits that giant planets might not need rocky cores if they form directly from unstable whorls of gas in the nebula around a young star.

He speculates that even larger planets around other stars might have lost their rocky cores entirely.

In the icy bodies around our solar system, radiation emitted from rocky cores could break up water molecules and support hydrogen - eating microbes.

Europa, meanwhile, appears to be entirely covered by an ocean, sandwiched between a rocky core and a thin ice crust.

Researchers have found a host of Earth - like planets, and are trying to understand what conditions might be like at the surface of a planet with a rocky core and a thick atmosphere.

They found that Enceladus has a rocky core and an icy crust.

A stiff rocky core would not flex enough to generate the heat necessary to melt the ice or explain the jets.

The chemicals would have originated in the rocky core of Enceladus, so to reach a plume they must have leached from the core via liquid water.

They're like small Neptunes but with huge amounts of liquid water around a rocky core.»

Jupiter is thought to have a rocky core with the mass of 10 Earths that helped it accumulate its gas shroud.

At high southern latitudes, a regional water ocean is shown sandwiched between an icy outer shell and a low density, rocky core.

The debris probably was dredged up from the bottom of the moon's ocean by water percolating through the rocky core, and then...

Give me a bunch of Vestas, and I can make a dry Earth with a rocky core.

If there's gas around and the bodies get large enough, perhaps something on the order of 10 Earth masses or so, then you can start pulling some gas in on top of your rocky core and make something that looks like a gas giant planet, like Jupiter.

«It was previously thought that the oceans in these satellites are in direct contact with the rocky core and a chemical reaction took place between them.

On the outside they are covered by a thick layer of ice, and underneath this there is an ocean surrounding a rocky core.

The team believes a shallow global ocean, perhaps only a mile deep, lies between Enceladus» rocky core and its 30 - mile - thick icy crust.

«Scientists have been debating whether this planet has an atmosphere like Earth and Venus, or just a rocky core and no atmosphere, like Mercury.

This violent «stripping» occurs in planets that are made up of a rocky core with a gaseous outer layer.

Coming as close as 5000 kilometers to the 140,000 - kilometer - diameter gas ball, Juno and it's gravity - gauging system should measure the mass of any rocky core at the center of Jupiter.

McKinnon has one idea: If the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn could pin down the nature of Titan's interior, researchers would know whether it formed hot in violent collisions — which would have produced a rocky core — or it formed cold through the quiet agglomeration of primordial debris.

Lagrange says the finding is consistent with a planet formation model known as core accretion in which the planet starts out as a rocky core that gravitationally acquires more matter from the surrounding swarm of dust and gas.

This represents the stage at which the planet's solid rocky core begins to melt, creating a molten material that sloshes around in Mercury's mantle before erupting onto the surface.

This stretches and squeezes the moon's rocky core, producing heat by friction.

If Europa does have an ocean, the academy report recommends a series of satellite missions and lab simulations of the chemistry at the boundary between Europa's ocean and its rocky core.

In this scenario, planets could form mainly from gas, without first forming a rocky core.

Combined with its mass of 8.57 Earths, that size suggests the planet has a dense rocky core, surrounded by a 3000 - kilometre - thick envelope of nearly pure water.

«The contact between the ocean and the rocky core is crucial,» said Attilio Rivoldini, co-author of the study.

While Saturn is mostly a gigantic shroud of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, it contains a rocky core — about 18 times the size of Earth, which responds to tidal forces from all of Saturn's major moons by bulging.

The ocean is several tens of kilometers deep and surrounds a large rocky core.

They modelled more complex bodies than have been tried before: rather than just a homogeneous ball, they included more realistic objects with a hard, rocky core surrounded by an icy mantle.

Although it is in no danger of having its atmosphere completely evaporated and being stripped down to a rocky core, this planet could explain the existence of so - called hot super-Earths that are very close to their stars.

In the past, the decay of radioactive elements and the leftover heat from Titan's formation might have melted nearly all the body's ice — so the ocean might have extended all the way down to the rocky core.

Analysis of data also shows that Ceres has a water - ice mantle surrounding a rocky core, and that there may still be at least pockets of liquid water beneath the surface, raising the prospect of potential habitability for microorganisms, as seemingly unlikely as that may sound for a world so far from the Sun.

«This planet has the interior structure of a hybrid super - Earth / Neptune, with a rocky core surrounded by a significant amount of water compressed into solid form at high pressures and temperatures.»

Chemical analysis of the plume indicated the presence of organic and nitrogen - bearing molecules, as well as salts and silicates, which strongly suggest ocean water is in contact with a rocky core.

Because it's in an eccentric (i.e. non-circular) orbit around its gas giant host, scientists think gravitational forces are causing Enceladus to twist and contort — and that those contortions are generating heat in the moon's rocky core.

The authors point out that Cassini's gravity measurements suggest Enceladus» rocky core is quite porous, which would allow water from the ocean to percolate into the interior.

The bottom of the ocean is also thought to be in contact with the rocky core, similar to on Earth, which could provide chemical nutrients to any possible life forms.

Planet «b» may have a dense wet atmosphere above layers of «supercritical fluid» and plasma, created when water and other ices subliminated as the planet migrated closer to its parent star, around a rocky core (more).

This hydrogen could be a byproduct of chemical reactions going on between the moon's rocky core and the warm water surrounding it.

There are two layers - an external icy layer of 30 - 40 km, and an internal rocky core made up of silicates.»

It would appear that these chemicals originated in the rocky core of the moon and were leached from the core via liquid water.

Based on these calculations, TRAPPIST - 1b appears to have a rocky core and a thick atmosphere.

Ceres is a partially differentiated body, with a rocky core overlaid by a volatile - rich shell.»

Astrobiologists theorize that, like ancient Earth, life may have emerged around hydrothermal vents located around the moon's submerged rocky core.