News tagged with gas giants
Oceans of Liquid Diamond May Exist On Neptune and Uranus
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientist explains how it may be possible for the planets Neptune and Uranus to contain liquid diamond oceans.
Jan 18, 2010 |
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Jupiter's melting heart sheds light on mysterious exoplanet
Scientists now have evidence that Jupiter's core has been dissolving, and the implications stretch far outside of our solar system.
Mar 22, 2012 |
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Avatar's moon Pandora could be real
In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. ...
Dec 17, 2009 |
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New technique helps search for another Earth (Update)
The quest to find another world that sustains life has been boosted by a technique that should let less expensive ground-based telescopes join the search, a study said on Wednesday.
Feb 03, 2010 |
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First temperate exoplanet sized up (w/ Video)
(PhysOrg.com) -- Combining observations from the CoRoT satellite and the ESO HARPS instrument, astronomers have discovered the first “normal” exoplanet that can be studied in great detail. Designated Corot-9b, ...
Mar 17, 2010 |
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Mysterious Planet-like Object Challenges Simple Definition, Reveals Its Surprising Identity
(PhysOrg.com) -- A mysterious planet-like object orbiting a not-quite-starlike "brown dwarf" is the most recent enigma discovered by astronomers with their ever-more powerful telescopes. Kamen Todorov, a graduate ...
Apr 06, 2010 |
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Team using Subaru Telescope makes major discovery
An international team of scientists that includes an astronomer from Princeton University has made the first direct observation of a planet-like object orbiting a star similar to the sun.
Dec 03, 2009 |
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Discovery of an extrasolar earth-sized planet
(PhysOrg.com) -- There are now over 490 confirmed extrasolar planets. The vast majority are gas giants like Jupiter, but they are much stranger because many orbit close to their stars and so are much hotter ...
Oct 08, 2010 |
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Massive planet is being torn apart by its own tides
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international group of astrophysicists has determined that a massive planet outside our Solar System is being distorted and destroyed by its host star--a finding that helps ...
Feb 24, 2010 |
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Our unlikely solar system
Recent modeling of solar mass stars with planetary systems, found that a system with four rocky planets and four gas giants in stable orbits – and only a sparsely populated outer belt of planetesimals ...
Apr 11, 2011 |
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Computer simulation shows Solar System once had an extra planet
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study published on arXiv.org shows that, based on computer simulations, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may not have been the only gas giants in our solar system. According to David ...
Sep 22, 2011 |
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Small, Ground-Based Telescope Images Three Exoplanets
(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have snapped a picture of three planets orbiting a star beyond our own using a modest-sized telescope on the ground. The surprising feat was accomplished by a team at NASA's Jet ...
Apr 14, 2010 |
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Coming to a solar system near you… super-Earth!
It is our general understanding of solar system composition that planets fall into two categories: gas giants like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus… and rocky bodies that support some type of atmosphere ...
Aug 08, 2011 |
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Cometary Impact on Neptune Two Centuries Ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- (PhysOrg.com) -- A comet may have hit the planet Neptune about two centuries ago. This is indicated by the distribution of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of the gas giant that researchers ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jul 16, 2010 |
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Helium rain on Jupiter explains lack of neon in atmosphere
(PhysOrg.com) -- On Earth, helium is a gas used to float balloons, as in the movie "Up." In the interior of Jupiter, however, conditions are so strange that, according to predictions by University of California, ...
Mar 22, 2010 |
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Gas giant
A gas giant (sometimes also known as a Jovian planet after the planet Jupiter, or giant planet) is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. There are four gas giants in our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Many extrasolar gas giants have been identified orbiting other stars.
Gas giants can be subdivided into different types. The "traditional" gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, are composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Uranus and Neptune are sometimes considered a separate subclass called ice giants, as they are mostly composed of water, ammonia, and methane; the hydrogen and helium in Uranus and Neptune is mostly in the outermost region. Among extrasolar planets, Hot Jupiters are gas giants that orbit very close to their stars and thus have a very high surface temperature; perhaps due to the relative ease of detecting them, Hot Jupiters are currently the most common form of extrasolar planet known.
Gas giants are commonly described as lacking a solid surface, although a more accurate description is to say that they lack a clearly-defined surface. Although they have rocky or metallic cores - in fact, such a core is thought to be required for a gas giant to form - the majority of the mass of Jupiter and Saturn is hydrogen and helium. In the planet's upper layers, these elements are gaseous, as they are on Earth, but further down in the planet's interior, they become compressed into liquids or solids, which become denser toward the core. Similarly, although the majority of Uranus and Neptune is icy, the extreme heat and pressure of these planets' interiors put the ices into less familiar physical states. Therefore, one cannot "land on" gas giants in a traditional sense. Terms such as diameter, surface area, volume, surface temperature, and surface density may refer only to the outermost layer visible from space.
For more information about Gas giant, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
