Which planet's core was detected first?

The planetary core consists of the innermost layer(s) of a planet. Cores of specific planets may be entirely solid or entirely liquid or maybe a mixture of solid and liquid layers as is the case in the Earth. In the Solar System, core size can range from about 20% (Moon) to 85% of a planet's radius (Mercury).

In 1798, Henry Cavendish calculated the average density of the earth to be 5.48 times the density of water (later refined to 5.53), this led to the accepted belief that the Earth was much denser in its interior. Following the discovery of iron meteorites, Wiechert in 1898 postulated that the Earth had a similar bulk composition to iron meteorites, but the iron had settled to the interior of the Earth, and later represented this by integrating the bulk density of the Earth with the missing iron and nickel as a core.

The first detection of Earth's core occurred in 1906 by Richard Dixon Oldham upon discovery of the P-wave shadow zone; the liquid outer core. By 1936 seismologists had determined the size of the overall core as well as the boundary between the fluid outer core and the solid inner core.