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 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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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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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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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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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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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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Characteristics of the first planets in the Universe?
What would have the very first planets looked like, based on their most likely chemical compositions?
For example:
Were they mostly grey gas giants with atmospheres of hydrogen and helium, ...
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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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How can clouds form in Jupiter's atmosphere of Hydrogen and Helium?
Here is a graphic of cloud layers of Jupiter (source: Wikipedia):
There are three distinct cloud layers of ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide, and water. The temperature and pressure conditions seem to ...
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Fate of Jupiter when our sun dies
Five billion years from now, the sun will have grown into a red giant star, more than a hundred times larger than its current size.
While this metamorphosis into the giant star will change the solar ...
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What is the orbital path of the newly discovered star-less planet PSO J318.5-22?
Recent results from Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa claim that there is a Jupiter-sized gas giant planet that is independent of a star about 80 light-years from Earth.
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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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Is there any evidence that the Gas Giant planets in our solar system are experiencing orbital migration?
Planetary migration is defined by Lubow and Ida (2010) in their article Planet Migration as
the process by which a planet’s orbital radius changes in time. The
main agent for causing gas giant ...
user8
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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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Why don't we have in-between planets?
The planets in our system are most often grouped into two categories:
Terrestrial:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Gas Giants:
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Why is it that we don't see "in-between" ...
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