We know quite a hatful about Jupiter . It ’s the largest planet in the Solar System and it spiel a role in govern how asteroid and comet get closer to the Sun , a behavior that protect the interior planet . The formation of the satellite was thought to be empathize too , but new evidence advise that it might have happened in a dissimilar way   – in growth jet .

The new research   has provided an explanation for some relics from the other Solar System that have been difficult to explain otherwise , as well as provide a more complex and intriguing formation to the flatulency giant .

It all startedlast yearwhen new information uncover the presence in the Solar System of two distinct universe of meteorite . Jupiter enters the picture because researchers suspected that one grouping of meteorite form before the gas giant and the other one organise   afterwards . This backdated the formation of Jupiter and extended its formation time as well .

" How could it have take two million years for Jupiter to grow from 20 to 50 Earth masses ? " co - source Julia Venturini , from the ETH Zürich asked in astatement .   " That seemed much too long . That was the touch off interrogation that move our study . "

Venturini and colleagues tuck scientist from different fields together and chop-chop had a detailed coming to answer the question .

Their study , published inNature Astronomy , has now revealed Jupiter experienced three distinct growth phases over the few first million years of the Solar System . The planet ’s embryo was ab initio formed quite quickly by centimeter - sized pebbles , which created the original core over the first million year or so . Then for 2 million long time , it follow with a sluggish accretion of planetesimals , a few km across in size , until it reached a mass of about 50 time the Earth . The third stage was the accretion of gas , which preserve until Jupiter became 300 fourth dimension the size   of our planet .

" Especially interesting is that it is not the same kind of bodies that bring mass and energy [ to the formation of the planet ] , " first author Yann Alibert , from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research at the University of Bern and Zürich , tot .   " During the first stage , the pebbles lend the mass . In the second phase , the planetesimals also added a mo of pot , but what is more of import , they brought energy . "

They were able to show that pebble are primal to the first microscope stage body-build - up of the gas pedal giant but it ’s the heat delivered by the planetesimal that slow down accretion of gas long enough to match the meteorite findings .

This exemplar has other interesting consequences . It is more probable to shape average - size flatulency giants rather than big unity like Jupiter , suggest that this is also how Uranus and Neptune might have formed .