How can Jupiter and Saturn be so warm at their cores when they're so far away from the sun?

Answer 1

of course, more data is clearly needed. perhaps, the gasious nature of these large planets acts as a sort of insulator for the energy eminating from the sun, which they do capture.

Answer 2

The energy the planets have do not necessarily come from the sun. For example, the heat from inside the earth is completely un-solar. In our case it is radioactive elements deep in the planet and from the residual gravitational energies that helped to form the Earth.

One of the shows on Animal Planet show critters living off of the heat & emissions from fissures in the earth deep in the oceans. Those critters are completely non-solar.

Same too with the giant gas planets. Their energies come from the gravitational forces by their gigantic masses (and I am guessing a certain amount arises from radioactivity as well). IIRC from my astronomy class if Jupiter were 10x more massive than it is it would have turned into a star.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

The answer to this question is related to the mass of the gas giants. They posess the lion's share of the mass of the solar system that's not bound up in the Sun. They're not as compact as they could be, so they undergo a process known as gravitational contraction. This gravitational contraction releases energy in the form of heat. This heat then very slowly leaks out of the giant planets, resulting in them radiating twice as much thermal energy as they absorb from the Sun. So much so, that their weather is driven mostly off of internally generated heat, unlike Earth's which is derived from solar heating.

Answer 5

All celstial objects create huge amounts of heat at their cores, I believe the bigger the hotter, and if Jupiter had been a bit bigger, there would have been enough pressure for it to foster nuclear fusion at its core, making it a small star.

Answer 6

The earth's core is hot, too, and that has nothing to do with its proximity to the sun. It is all from the compressive forces of gravity.

Answer 7

Fusion --in terms of physics these planets are so damn big that their gravity keeps billions of tons of sub atomic particles in a constant nuclear explosion.

They really don't depend much on solar heat at all. Just like the Sun they are "burning up". Don't worry though at the rate they decay, which is hardly measurable, they'll be around for a long time yet.

Answer 8

With the extremely gaseous atmospheres before their small inner cores, they have an atmosphere that will trap all of the heat. When the heat is trapped, the inner cores are warmed.