2024-04-17 04:00:09
Our Solar System’s giant icy planets, Uranus and Neptune, may contain much more than just water ice.
Scientists have long thought these planets were mostly made of frozen water, but recent discoveries indicate their composition may be more complex. The data collected by the Voyager 2 probe and the observations from Earth show that these planets also have significant amounts ofoxygenof carbone and D’hydrogen. This varied composition raises questions regarding the formation of these giants.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Current models, based on measured physical properties, describe an envelope of hydrogen and helium, an underlying layer of water ice andammonia compressed, and a central rocky core. However, the new analyzes suggest that these models may be incomplete. These giant planets would have formed by the accumulation of planetesimals, similar to today’s comets in the Kuiper Belt, a region filled with icy bodies beyond Neptune.
Uri Malamud, the study’s principal investigator and scientist planetary at theInstitut Technology of Israel, questions the possibility of forming a giant like Uranus and Neptune from ice-poor building blocks. To explore this idea, the team built hundreds of thousands of models of the interiors of these planets.
These models take into account various chemical compounds, including iron, water and methane, and seek to determine which model best matches the observed characteristics.
The results show that models with a large proportion of methane are the most compliant. The methane might appear in solid blocks or, given the pressure, in a pasty state, formant a thick layer between the hydrogen-helium envelope and the water ice.
These discoveries might shed light on our understanding of these still mysterious planets, although verifying their methane richness represents a challenge. Malamud points out that this would be a goal for one of the proposed missions by NASA and other space agencies intended to explore Uranus.
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