What is at the Core of Jupiter?

More than 75 percent of information on this site is unconfirmed data that has been deduced from indirect methods on Jupiter. No one has any definite idea what is at the core of Jupiter.

Three years ago everyone were so sure the solar system has nine planets. Now they believe we may have plenty more dwarf planets bigger than Pluto. Accept any and all information on physics and astronomy with a grain of salt. Something you believe today may very well be refuted tomorrow.

@dimpley: Jupiter has a giant purpose. It shields us from meteorites. It also causes a lot of gravitational force on everything in our solar system. It helps us to understand what purpose other gas giants may have in other solar systems. It helps us to understand more about stars and chemistry.

Nothing is for nothing. Nothing is too hard to understand.

@bigjim - You are quite right about the political will not being there. The U.S. has gutted its space program in the last couple of years, and now the space shuttles are being retired permanently.

If one takes a short-sighted view of things, I guess it makes sense, since we have so many other things to pay for these days. But once stopped, it will be hard to come back, and there are all kinds of potential discoveries to be made. Hopefully funding will come back or private industry will take up the slack.

@Viktor13 - Things are already changing. Private companies are starting to get more involved in the space race, and I would expect it to get more common as funding and perhaps government subsidies becomes available.

There was just the X Prize, where Burt Rutan won $10 million for building the first private aircraft capable of going into orbit. Several teams were competing for that milestone, and now it has been reached.

I have heard a lot of talk about governments letting private companies take a bigger role in space exploration, simply because the funding and/or political will are not there for government space exploration in the current economic climate.

@dimpley - I think a whole lot of people share your viewpoint and would like to know more about the solar system and the rest of the stars and planets. Some people have an Earth-centered view of the Universe, but many do not.

The problem is, there isn't a whole lot a person can do about it. At least for now, space exploration is mainly the purview of governments, and they do not seem all that ambitious to get out and explore these days.

Hopefully, that will change as technology improves.

@mabeT- I sometimes wonder the same thing. I don't make the mistake of some, thinking its purpose must be merely to entertain or intrigue us on Earth, but it does make you wonder when, if ever, we might go to these places or find out more about them and even about other places in the universe which support life.

In the here and now, for me at least, my question for things like the composition and diameter of Jupiter is also kind of "what's the point?". However, I do think that someday we'll know the point.

@dimpley - I agree about the egotism, and this is something that my scientifically-minded family and I like to discuss when we get together. The universe, the galaxy, and even our own solar system are so immense and complicated -- there's no way we were meant to stay on earth and never go examine all of that stuff in detail.

My astronomy class covered information about Jupiter's core as well as the sun and other details of our solar system, and it made me realize how little we understand about these "heavenly bodies". I mean, most of what my astronomy class taught was theoretical, because of course no person has ever gone to Jupiter to look at the core firsthand or anything like that.

We really are tiny, tiny beings in this immense universe. Who knows what else is out there? We'll never know until we go take a look firsthand.

When I read things like this article I just have to wonder precisely what the purpose of such things are. Okay; so Jupiter is this gas giant. But it apparently doesn’t sustain life, and is more comparable to a star than an actual planet.

So what is its function in this universe? Earth’s purpose seems obvious – it holds lots of living beings and sustains them. The sun is our heat and light source. The moon helps to control our tides and all sorts of other things. It and the stars provide light in the night sky.

All of that has an obvious purpose (and, yes, I do believe there is absolutely a purpose for it all.) The fact that we cannot see the purpose of such huge things as Jupiter and the other non-living planets doesn’t mean that they don’t have one.

It simply means that there is a purpose that is bigger than us; one that our minds could probably never comprehend or understand. And that is both amazing and downright humbling if you accept it.

I find the planets and stars – all of that outer space stuff – to be so intriguing. I mean, I am a teeny-tiny dot on the Earth, but there are 320 Earths wrapped up in one Jupiter. So how many of me would it take to create it?

It truly is amazing, and a little bit mind blowing when we sit back and allow the gravity of what this means sink into our minds.

Just think about it. We are tiny little specks that at most, and with a lot of luck, are going to be around maybe a hundred years. And then there are planets, like earth, that are huge to us but small in comparison to the gas giants.

And the gas giants are merely specks when compared to the solar system and then on up to the universe. All of these have been and will probably be for thousands of more years to come.

It is aweing, inspiring and just a little bit frightening. And yet, we humans, in all of our egotism think that we are the end all, be all of it all; who are we kidding?