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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Is it possible for a star to orbit a planet?
Is it possible for a red dwarf to orbit a gas giant?
OR
Has this happened and it is just assumed that the gas giant is orbiting the star?
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Is Jupiter made entirely out of gas?
I heard that Jupiter is made out of gas. But in school I learned that Jupiter has gravity which is 2.5 times that of Earth (Gravity that can tear apart a comet) and gravity is proportional to mass.
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How is the diameter of a gas giant calculated?
As we know atmospheres of celestial bodies don't just stop at a given distance. They gradually become less dense as you move away from the center.
I understand that the diameter of stars is ...
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Why does the Sun have different day lengths, but not the gas giants?
The Sun's rotation period varies from about 25 days at the equator to about 38 days at the poles. As I understand it, this is because the Sun is not solid, and because of the way centripetal force ...
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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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Why does each and every planet of our solar system have an unique axial tilt angle?
Why do planets have an axial tilt? From the above image we can see that each planet's axial tilt angle varies and differs from the others.
What was the cause of this, was this from the beginning of ...
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Why is the core of a gas giant supported by electron degeneracy pressure instead of nuclear fusion?
After a Sun-sized protostar forms, its core will become denser over time due to radiation. The core eventually gets dense and hot enough for hydrogen fusion to take place. In the late phases of the ...
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Maximum and minimum gas giant & ice giant densities
I'm working on a star system generator for a game; I'd like its results to be plausible but they needn't be super-realistic. I've got the orbital distances and masses of each body in the system, and ...
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Why are the natural satellites (moons) of all planets solid?
Why are the natural satelites (moons) of all planets - including the moons of the gas giants - solid or rocky, and not gaseous?
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Why don't we detect planets around OB stars and no terrestrial planets around A or early F stars?
Looking at an exoplanet database, I noticed that there are very few planets detected around main-sequence OBA stars, and most of them are gas giants/brown dwarfs. Why can't we detect low-mass planets ...
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Is there a term for asteroseismology as applied to giant planets?
Giant planets such as Jupiter have oscillations which enable analyses using the techniques of asteroseismology, for example Gaulme et al. (2011) detected global modes on Jupiter via radial velocity ...
user24157
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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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Can small gas planets exist?
Most of the known gas planets (Jupiter, Saturn, etc.) are huge. They are even called "gas giants".
is it possible to exist a gas planet around the size of Earth? If yes, why; if no, why?
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Is there a gas giant orbiting TRAPPIST-1?
I would like to know if besides these planets, astronomers have discovered a gas planet like Jupiter in this system and if on these planets could exist life without a comet protector like Jupiter does ...
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What will happen when landing on Jupiter?
Jupiter is a gas giant, so landing on it will not be like landing on Earth, our Moon or Mars etc., as it does not have a solid surface like these.
If we have a hypothetical spaceship or probe landing ...
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