Questions tagged [gas-giants]
Questions regarding massive planets composed of layers of gases, such as hydrogen and helium, surrounding a solid/liquid core.
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Why can't stars be multicolored like gas giants?
Gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn have bands of different colors in their atmosphere. These are due to the rotation of the planets. Stars rotate too, so why do most stars have patches/blotches of ...
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Why do the solar system planets go rock-gas-ice instead of rock-ice-gas when moving away from the sun?
The sun and the solar wind seem to do a good job of fractionating lighter materials to the outer solar system and leaving heavier materials in the inner solar system. So we end up with rocky/metallic ...
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Life cycle of a gas planet?
I am interested in learning more about the (simplified) life cycle of gas planets which are not brown dwarfs (meaning less than 13 Jupiter masses). It obviously starts off with their creation within a ...
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Why are gas giants (Jovian planets) spherical in shape? [duplicate]
If the core of the gas giant was square for instance, would the planet be square too?
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How to calculate the frequency of a gas giant eclipsing the sun from a moon?
Say you have a moon around a gas giant which goes around a star. If the moon has an inclination of around 0° relative to the gas giant's orbit, the gas giant will eclipse the star every orbit of the ...
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Updrafts on Gas Giants
Gas giants put out a fair amount of heat from gravitational collapse, so there's bound to be quite a bit of upward moving winds. If Carl Sagan's idea about aerial ecologies pans out, could larger ...
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Qualities of gas giant atmospheres at a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter
At what depth in the atmospheres of the gas giants does the density of their atmospheres equal 1 gram per cubic centimeter? What is the pressure and temperature at these depths? Are the radiations ...
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What is the difference between aurorae and electroglow?
One of the discoveries of Voyager 2 at Uranus was a phenomenon called "electroglow", which as I understand it is related to charged particles interacting with the atmosphere that cause the ...
user24157
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What's the critical mass of a rocky planet before its gravity traps enough gas in its atmosphere to start becoming a gassy planet
Looking at the latest theories, I've noticed that most rocky planets are below a certain mass range. I speculate that maybe the way gas giants and gas dwarfs form is a rocky planet during the ...
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Where do we define the "surface" of a gas planet?
Since gas giant consist of most gas components, where do we establish their "surface"?
My take is basically to take the limit in which all light is opaque. For example, in this photo:
The ...
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Are there other planetary systems where gas giants are on the inside to rocky planet orbits?
I understand that formation theories for gas giants suggest they should be born further away where there is more gas for them to monopolize vs the sun, and then to form Hot Jupiters they need to ...
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Why do gas giants have clearly delineated surfaces, whereas the Earth's atmosphere fades into space?
I've just seen this Forbes article.
Why do gas giants appear to have clearly delineated surfaces, whereas the Earth's atmosphere fades into space?
Is it just a matter of scale? Or is there some ...
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Satellite grids around other planets [closed]
We send a lot of rovers to Mars, as interesting as the planet could possibly be. But why are we not putting satellite grids around planets that could transmit superficial probe data at the very least?...
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What is the gaseous-to-rocky ratio of exoplanets?
Around the Sun, there are as many gaseous planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) as there are rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars).
Do other stars have similar gaseous-to-rocky ...
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Is there a clear-cut difference between rocky and gaseous planets?
A gas giant planet is large enough that it retains a lot of hydrogen and helium. A rocky planet is one with a solid surface. That's the rule of thumb to distinguish between the rocky and gaseous ...
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