Why does Jupiter have a magnetic field if it is a gas giant?

Question

Aurora (northern /southern lights) are caused by particles hitting a planets magnetic field. The Earth has a magnetic field because it has an iron core. How come Jupiter has a magnetic field if it is a gas giant and contains no iron?

Answer 1

Jupiter is mostly gas (as you said) but it still has a surface and a gravity core.

Answer 2

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RE:
Why does Jupiter have a magnetic field if it is a gas giant?
Aurora (northern /southern lights) are caused by particles hitting a planets magnetic field. The Earth has a magnetic field because it has an iron core. How come Jupiter has a magnetic field if it is a gas giant and contains no iron?

Answer 3

As communications between the planets are improving day by day the planets became aware of the debate surrounding Pluto. Just so the giant gas ball could keep the attention away from it's self and focused on Pluto it purchased a magnetic field from the InterStellerSeller site, thus proving that it is a true planet. Had Pluto not lost it's Internet access all those years ago (should have paid the bills even though they were astronomical) it could have purchased more land and may well have still been classed as a planet.

Answer 4

Are you sure Jupiter has a magnetic field, besides just gravity?

Unless Jupiter has some iron core, it could not have a magnetic field, as you point out.

Earth is lucky about our magnetism. It deflects a lot of radiation away, into the Van allen Radiation Belt.

Answer 5

Even though Jupiter is known as a 'gas giant,' very deep in the interior its material is highly compressed into a kind of super-dense liquid that is electrically charged. This deeper material doesn't rotate at the same speed as layers above it. One of the results of this difference in rotational velocity is a magnetic field that's about 10 times stronger than that of Earth.

Answer 6

Because all the different layers of of gas will have varying densities, moving at different speeds, and creating an electric charge.As the whole ball of gas is rotating then a north and south polarity is created resulting in a magnetic field. Remember even clouds on earth which are just collections of fine water droplets build up an immense electrical charge in certain conditions, resulting in huge electrical sparks when they discharge to earth as lightning.

Answer 7

The magnetic field are not only caused because the iron but to make a magnetic field its only necessary have a electrical charges, and in Jupiter there are (ions).

Answer 8

Deano,
Do you have an original thought or can you only cut and paste from academic articles? Anyone can google the answer and copy it, we call that plagiarism. Gets many folks kicked out of colleges, fired from jobs, and looked at as incompetent daily. I think you fit into that last category. You can go here to find deano answer:
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec99/944316318.As.r.html

I think you should have listed this in your sources since it word for word.

It is believed that Jupiter's magnetic field comes from metallic hydrogen that is in the core of the planet.

Answer 9

The magnetic field is caused by electromagnetism and gravity. It is caused by any mass, not just iron or metal. Jupiter is the second most massive object in our system besides our star (the sun) and consequently has the second most gravity and electromagnetism.

Earth would still have a magnetic field even if it had a carbon core...

Answer 10

Possibly from a liquid metallic form of the pressurized hydrogen at Jupiter's core. No one really knows becuase we can't probe into something with such intense gravity (yet).