Process of Science: Why do we think the source of Jupiter's large internal energy come from gravitational contraction?
What will be an ideal response?
That Jupiter produces more energy than it absorbs from the Sun is an observed fact. We can calculate that any heat from its formation would have been radiated away by now. Furthermore, the amount of energy is too large to explain by radioactive decay (the process that applies on Earth). We conclude that gravitational contraction is the most plausible source of the heat by a process of elimination of other possibilities, even though the rate of contraction is too small to be directly observable.
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