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It's weird to me they can make such assessments with confidence when we didn't even know the density/composition of Jupiter to any certainty until Hubble was ar
by ck2 2y ago
It's weird to me they can make such assessments with confidence when we didn't even know the density/composition of Jupiter to any certainty until Hubble was around just in time to observe Shoemaker-Levy plow into it and eject enough surface matter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9#Chemical_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9...
- cdelsolar 2y agoWe’ve known the mass and the size of Jupiter since way before the shoemaker-levy impact.
- astrolx 2y agoAFAIK the Shoemaker-Levy impact was useful for other studies, but not so for the density/mass of Jupiter (also as per your link). Jupiter is full of surprises still (mostly about its interior). However, the assessments made in this article about the mass and radius of the planet are using very basic physical laws (mostly Kepler laws from the 1600s).