New Delhi: The weirdest planets in the Solar System may just be stranger than previously imagined. Uranus and Neptune are conventionally both considered to be ice giants. The Earth has a metallic core, surrounded by a mantle of molten rock or magma, with a solid rocky crust. The ice giants on the other hand have an atmosphere of hydrogen, helium and methane as their outermost layer, with an icy mantle, made up of water, ammonia and methane ices, with a rocky core. New interior models of the ice giants indicate that a range of possibilities fit the observations.

The researchers examined previous assumptions of these ice giants, that are based on theoretical predictions of the process of planet assembly around a newborn star, and reconciled them with observations. The scientists started wi

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