Related papers: Revealing Giant Planet Interiors Beneath the Cloud…
While conventional interior models for Jupiter and Saturn are based on the simplistic assumption of a solid core surrounded by a homogeneous gaseous envelope, we derive new models with an inhomogeneous distribution of heavy elements, i.e. a…
The determination of Saturn's atmospheric noble gas abundances are critical to understanding the formation and evolution of Saturn, and giant planets in general. These measurements can only be performed with an entry probe. A Saturn probe…
During the past few years, both the Cassini mission at Saturn and the Juno mission at Jupiter, provided measurements with unprecedented accuracy of the gravity and magnetic fields of the two gas giants. Using the gravity measurements, it…
The international planetary science community met in London in January 2020, united in the goal of realising the first dedicated robotic mission to the distant Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune, as the only major class of Solar System planet…
The atmospheres of the four giant planets of our Solar System share a common and well-observed characteristic: they each display patterns of planetary banding, with regions of different temperatures, composition, aerosol properties and…
Remote sensing observations meet some limitations when used to study the bulk atmospheric composition of the giant planets of our solar system. A remarkable example of the superiority of in situ probe measurements is illustrated by the…
Venus has regained attention on the international stage with the approval of three new missions by ESA and NASA. As the twin sister of Earth, Venus exhibits a distinct atmosphere, which casts a veil of mystery over the planetary evolution…
The era of outer planet orbiters (Galileo, Juno and Cassini) is advancing our understanding of how the radiation belts of Jupiter and Saturn are structured, form and evolve well beyond what had been possible during the age of flyby missions…
The Saturn System has been studied in detail by the Cassini-Huygens Mission. A major thrust of those investigations has been to understand how Saturn formed and evolved and to place Saturn in the context of other gas giants and planetary…
The Ice Giants represent a unique and relatively poorly characterized class of planets that have been largely unexplored since the brief Voyager 2 flyby in the late 1980's. Uranus is particularly enigmatic, due to its extreme axial tilt,…
Uranus and Neptune, and their diverse satellite and ring systems, represent the least explored environments of our Solar System, and yet may provide the archetype for the most common outcome of planetary formation throughout our galaxy. Ice…
The atmospheric structure of gas giants, especially those of Jupiter and Saturn, has been an object of scientific studies for a long time. The measurement of the gravitational fields by the Juno mission for Jupiter and the Cassini mission…
The impact of the inner structure and thermal history of planets on their observable features, such as luminosity or magnetic field, crucially depends on the poorly known heat and charge transport properties of their internal layers. The…
The wealth of observational data about Jupiter and Saturn provides strong constraints to guide our understanding of the formation of giant planets. The size of the core and the total amount of heavy elements in the envelope have been…
The internal structure of gas giant planets may be more complex than the commonly assumed core-envelope structure with an adiabatic temperature profile. Different primordial internal structures as well as various physical processes can lead…
Giant planets have key role in shaping planetary systems. Their composition reveals information on the conditions at which planets form, and their interiors serve as natural laboratories to explore the behavior of materials at extreme…
We review our current understanding of the interior structure and thermal evolution of Saturn, with a focus on recent results in the Cassini era. There has been important progress in understanding physical inputs, including equations of…
The JUNO mission to Jupiter is planned to measure the water abundance in Jupiter's atmosphere below the cloud layer. This measurement is important because it can be used to reveal valuable information on Jupiter's origin and its…
Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. New constraints are now obtained both in the Solar and exoplanetary systems. Tidal dissipation…
Giant planets are thought to have cores in their deep interiors, and the division into a heavy-element core and hydrogen-helium envelope is applied in both formation and structure models. We show that the primordial internal structure…