Planetary core

A planetary core consists of the innermost layers of a <a href="/facts/Planet/rbPjE6Bx">planet</a>. Cores may be entirely liquid, or a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. In the <a href="/facts/Solar_System/QIcLSazQ">Solar System</a>, core sizes range from about 20% (the <a href="/facts/Moon/zKHqEMPb">Moon</a>) to 85% of a planet's radius (<a href="/facts/Mercury_(planet)/lVa1GIyX">Mercury</a>).
<a href="/facts/Gas_giants/pmF6KztG">Gas giants</a> also have cores, though the composition of these are still a matter of debate and range in possible composition from traditional stony/iron, to ice or to <a href="/facts/Metallic_hydrogen/Wc4P3R6I">fluid metallic hydrogen</a>. Gas giant cores are proportionally much smaller than those of terrestrial planets, though they can be considerably larger than the Earth's nevertheless; <a href="/facts/Jupiter/95m7XjMT">Jupiter</a>'s is 10–30 times heavier than Earth, and <a href="/facts/Exoplanet/zjfmqfUf">exoplanet</a> <a href="/facts/HD149026_b/gwTKFMMI">HD149026 b</a> may have a core 100 times the mass of the Earth.
Planetary cores are challenging to study because they are impossible to reach by drill and there are almost no samples that are definitively from the core. Thus, they are studied via indirect techniques such as seismology, mineral physics, and planetary dynamics.

Planetary core open-in-new

Planetary core