Sentences with phrase «solid rocky cores»

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.»

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.

Not exact matches

When Roberts made the core more like a rocky snow cone than solid stone, it flexed and created enough heat to fuel the moon's famous water jets.

PUFFED UP Early in its development, a rocky planet may turn into a synestia (illustrated), a spinning disk of vaporized rock that looks like a jelly - filled doughnut with a small, solid core (gray).

Models of Jupiter's interior suggest it has a solid core of up to 18 Earth - masses» worth of rocky material — just about 6 percent of Jupiter's total mass.

At the moment, the team's favored idea is akin to the second solution above: that large bodies of solid metal slowly dropped from the rocky mantle and into the core to lower the nucleation barrier.

«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.»

In 2010, model simulations of rocky super-Earths between two and 10 Earth - masses indicated that high pressures could keep their cores solid instead of molten, which would prevent a protective magnetic field from forming protecting developing surface life from stellar radiation.