“It is likely that life’s sustainability critically depends on being sited in the Goldilocks zone and having the right amount of metallic core, which contains an appropriate amount of a light element and is not cooling too fast.” “The generation of a planetary magnetosphere, which nurtures life, shapes a planet’s habitability.” “The attributes of our Solar System may be equally applicable to exoplanetary systems,” the researchers said. This new understanding of the role magnetism plays in planetary formation creates a kink in the study of exoplanets, because there is currently no method to determine the magnetic properties of a star from Earth-based observations. The cores of Earth and Venus are only about one-third of their mass, and Mars, the outermost of the rocky planets, has a small core that is only about one-quarter of its mass. Mercury has a metallic core that makes up about three-quarters of its mass. ![]() When the authors incorporated their model into calculations of planetary formation, it revealed a gradient in metal content and density that corresponds perfectly with what scientists know about the planets in our Solar System. ![]() The clumps closer to the Sun would have been exposed to a stronger magnetic field and thus would contain more iron than those farther away from the Sun.Īs the clumps coalesced and cooled into spinning planets, gravitational forces drew the iron into their core.ĭensity of the rocky solar system bodies: uncompressed and solid densities are shown for terrestrial planets and chondrites (gray), respectively bulk planetary densities are shown for asteroids (blue) for 1 Ceres, its bulk density is a lower limit of its solid density, given its high ice abundance and porosity the red line shows a fit curve for the planets. They factored in the magnetic field that would have been generated by the Sun as it burst into being and calculated how that magnetic field would draw iron through the dust and gas cloud.Īs the early Solar System began to cool, dust and gas that were not drawn into the Sun began to clump together. Using existing models of planetary formation, the scientists determined the speed at which gas and dust was pulled into the center of our Solar System during its formation. ![]() The core also contains the majority of the planet’s phosphorus, which is an important nutrient for sustaining carbon-based life. On Earth, for instance, a molten iron core creates a magnetosphere that protects the planet from cancer-causing cosmic rays. The composition of a planet’s core is important for its potential to support life. Their study suggests that magnetism should be factored into future attempts to describe the composition of rocky planets, including those outside our Solar System. The researchers found that the density and proportion of iron in a rocky planet’s core correlates with the strength of the magnetic field around the Sun during planetary formation. ![]() When the planets began to form from clumps of that dust and gas, planets closer to the Sun incorporated more iron into their cores than those farther away. Yoshizaki shows that during the early formation of our Solar System, when the young Sun was surrounded by a swirling cloud of dust and gas, grains of iron were drawn toward the center by the Sun’s magnetic field. The new model developed by Professor McDonough and Dr. A view of the planets of our Solar System.
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