Hot Ice on Jupiter Caused by Pressure Rests There Unseen

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 11

Hot Ice on Jupiter Caused by Pressure Rests There Unseen

BLOOMINGTON, (Indiana)— Vast, subterranean oceans of hot ice on the I Planet Jupiter were described to the 1 American Astronomical Society by Rupert Wildt of Princeton University. ] The ice is so sizzling, he said, that, j iron touching it would turn red. Although this ice cannot be seen, it is a ■ virtual certainty as a result of dis(coveries of the queer freaks of nature that clothe this planet. | The ice is so hot, Professor Wildt pointed out, because it is under pressure, buried thousands of miles deep ‘under layers of other stuff almost as incredible to man. The pressure makes the water both solid and hot. Hot ice actually has been produced under high pressure by Dr. P. W. Bridgman at Harvard University. ! Jupiter, because of its great size j (about 80,000 miles in diameter), exercises a gravitational pressure down at its water level of from 7,000,000 to 14,000,000 pounds a square inch. Telescox>ic analysis has shown Jupiter’s atmosphere is largely methane, or coal gas. Below this atmosphere He oceans of frozen hydrocarbons—hydrogen and carbon solidified by both intense cold and gravitational pull. If man could riv to Jupiter, he probably could saw out chunks of the hydrocarbon to melt and run his gasoline engines. Analyzing what must lie in the depths of this planet, Professor Wildt said the oxygen and hydrogen combination that makes water, which is heavier than the hydrocarbons, would lie very deep. Jupiter’s interior, he said, is rock with a metallic core, probably much like that of. the earth. Muddled A rural witness in a Scottish dog case related how the defendant, M’Lure, came up and struck him, and proceeded:— “(So I just up and gives him a wipe. Just then his dog came along an’ I hit him again.” “Hit the dog?” asked the magistrate. “No. Hit M’Lure. An’ then I ups wi’ a stane and thrawed it at him and it rolled him over an’ over.” “Threw a stone at M’Lure?” “At the dog. An’ he got up an’ hit me again.” “The dog?” “No, M’Lure. An’ wi’ that ha stuck his tail atween his legs an’ went off.” “M’Lure?” “No, the dog. An’ when he came back he pounded me.” “The dog came back and pounded you!” “No, M’Lure. An’ he isna’ hurt a bit.” “Who isn’t hurt?” “The dog.”