Jupiter is a gas giant with a composition similar to stars and the universe. Its interior is highly pressurized and hot, with a core mostly made of iron. The transition from gaseous to liquid hydrogen is gradual, and deeper still, metallic hydrogen is present. The temperature and pressure at Jupiter’s core are extreme, but not enough to achieve stellar ignition.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the most massive, equivalent to just under 320 Earths. The part of the planet we can see – the cloud tops – is 90% hydrogen and 10% helium. As a gas giant, Jupiter’s composition is more similar to the composition of stars and the universe in general, in contrast to rocky planets like Earth, which are composed mostly of heavy elements such as oxygen, silicon, nickel, and iron.
As the most massive planet, Jupiter’s interior is highly pressurized, making it very hot. The Jovian interior is approximately 71% hydrogen, 24% helium, and 5% other elements by mass. Jupiter’s core is thought to be mostly iron, the heaviest element found in significant quantities in the solar system.
If you were to travel into Jupiter’s core, starting from the upper atmosphere, one of the first observations you would make is increasing helium levels with depth. About 1,000 km (621 mi), the hydrogen that makes up most of Jupiter’s atmosphere slowly becomes denser and denser, eventually reaching a liquid phase. The boundary between gaseous and liquid hydrogen in the Jovian atmosphere is thought to be gradual.
Deeper still, liquid hydrogen is compressed enough to take on conductive qualities, entering a phase known as metallic hydrogen. Jupiter’s core is surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen that extends outward to 78% of the planet’s radius. On Earth, metallic hydrogen has only been produced in the laboratory for about a microsecond, at pressures of over a million atmospheres (>100 GPa or gigapascals) and temperatures of thousands of kelvins. In Jupiter, metallic hydrogen is usually in liquid form.
In the transition zone between normal and metallic hydrogen, the temperature is thought to be 10,000 K and the pressure is 200 GPa. These conditions are already more extreme than those found in the solar system outside the gas giants and the Sun itself. Beneath an extremely thick layer of metallic hydrogen lies the core of Jupiter itself, the properties of which are not well known. The temperature at Jupiter’s core is estimated at 36,000 K and the pressure at about 3,000-4,500 GPa. While this sounds like a lot, it is nowhere near what is needed to achieve stellar ignition and for the planet to become a star. To achieve these conditions, it is estimated that the planet would have to be 75 times more massive than it is now.
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