Reevaluating Planet Formation from Exoplanet Discoveries

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Exoplanet discoveries have challenged the traditional understanding of planet formation, showing that planets can vary significantly from our solar system's layout. The early detection of exoplanets larger than Jupiter, orbiting closer to their stars than Mercury, prompted scientists to reconsider the process of planet formation. The assumption that inner planets are rocky because they lost their atmosphere, while outer planets are gaseous because they could retain it, was found to be inaccurate. Instead, it was revealed that inner planets are rocky because they couldn't gather gas fast enough, whereas outer planets could accumulate more material due to their abundance of building blocks.

The radius of the Earth is over 6,000 kilometers, but the deepest we've ever dug below the surface is only about 12 km. Yet we have a quite reliable idea of the structure of the Earth's interior -- inner core, outer core, mantle, crust -- not to mention pretty good pictures of what's going on inside some other planets. How do we know those things, and what new things are we learning in the exoplanet era? I talk with astrophysicist and planetary scientist Sabine Stanley about how we use gravitation, seismology, magnetic fields, and other tools to learn what's happening inside planets.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/01/29/264-sabine-stanley-on-whats-inside-planets/

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Sabine Stanley received a Ph.D. in geophysics from Harvard University. She is currently a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University. She has been awarded the William Gilbert Award from the American Geophysical Union. Her recent book is What's Hidden Inside Planets?

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