What Can Meteorites Tell Us About the Formation of Jupiter?

Abstract

Abstract Gas giants like Jupiter are a fundamental component of planetary systems, but how they formed has been uncertain. Here we discuss how paleomagnetic records in meteorites of the solar nebula may tell us about Jupiter's final growth stage. We suggest that under certain testable assumptions, the meteorite data indicate that proto‐Jupiter grew from a mass of ∼50 Earth masses (M⨁) at >3.46 million years (Ma) after solar system formation to its final mass of 318 M⊕ over just <0.5 Ma. This rapid acceleration is consistent with a key prediction of the core accretion model for giant planet formation.

Keywords

• core accretion
• gas giant
• gravitational instability
• Jupiter
• meteorite paleomagnetism
• solar nebula