Freeing Giant Planet Interior Models of Assumptions

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We have little direct information about the interiors of giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn because they are shrouded in deep layers of clouds. There are many fundamental questions about such planets: Do they have a separate core, like the Earth? If so, what is its mass? If such a core exists, is it distinct from the thick atmosphere or mixed into it? Indirect methods must be used to answer such questions, and the work to be done here will help provide answers. The PI will use computers to generate a suite of interior models for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; spacecraft data will be used to check the results. This work will also help in the understanding of planets around other stars. UCSC is a Hispanic-serving institution, and each year of the project an undergraduate student and two high school students will assist in the research.Since planets are fluid and rapid rotators they are oblate, causing their gravitational fields to differ from that of a spherically symmetric body of the same mass. This fact has long been used to model the interiors of the giant planets. This work will use a minimum number of assumptions. Using Bayesian data-driven inference tools, the team will derive nearly model-independent constraints on the interior density structure of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, and on the depth-dependent differential rotation of Saturn.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.