Within our solar system, the planet Jupiter is located just two doors down. Yet for all its proximity, the environment on Earth’s neighbor remains mysterious. The interior of the giant fifth planet from the sun experiences such ferocious conditions that scientists can’t come close to recreating them in laboratory experiments.

But environments like Jupiter’s, where the temperature is 15,000 Kelvin and the pressures are around 40 million atmospheres, don’t faze Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science Burkhard Militzer. With a joint appointment in astronomy, he studies the interior makeup of planets with computer models. These simulations allow him to observe how crushing pressures and hellish temperatures affect the behavior of molecules. By observing a few hundred atoms at a time, he can predict whether materials will be solid or liquid, describe the likely makeup of Jupiter’s core, and even provide insights into alien weather.

Militzer uses techniques invented by physicists to calculate the properties of materials, and ratchets them up to recreate much denser, hotter systems. He derives the orbitals—the location of the electrons whirling about the nuclei of atoms—and calculates the forces acting on them. In the simulation, the nuclei are moved accordingly, and the computations are repeated. Based on the calculated energies, “I can say something about the behavior of real materials without touching anything besides a keyboard,” Militzer says.

High in Jupiter’s atmosphere, hydrogen and helium separate out like oil and water. The helium condenses into rain, and sweeps neon from the planet’s atmosphere. (Image courtesy Burkhard Militzer)

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