Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A giant planet, sometimes referred to as a jovian planet (Jove being another name for the Roman god Jupiter), is a diverse type of planet much larger than Earth. Giant planets are usually primarily composed of low- boiling point materials ( volatiles ), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System.It is a gas giant with a mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined and slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun.
The composition of Jupiter's atmosphere is similar to that of the planet as a whole. [1] Jupiter's atmosphere is the most comprehensively understood of those of all the giant planets because it was observed directly by the Galileo atmospheric probe when it entered the Jovian atmosphere on December 7, 1995. [28]
The Jupiter mass, also called Jovian mass, is the unit of mass equal to the total mass of the planet Jupiter. This value may refer to the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter is by far the most massive planet in the Solar System. It is approximately 2.5 times as massive as ...
The smallest known extrasolar planet that is likely a "gas planet" is Kepler-138d, which has the same mass as Earth but is 60% larger and therefore has a density that indicates a thick gas envelope. [16] A low-mass gas planet can still have a radius resembling that of a gas giant if it has the right temperature. [17]
Vesta and Pallas are nonetheless sometimes considered small terrestrial planets anyway by sources preferring a geophysical definition, because they do share similarities to the rocky planets of the inner solar system. [56] The fourth-largest asteroid, Hygiea (radius 216.5 ± 4 km), is icy.
The planet known as HD 189733b, discovered in 2005, already had a reputation as a rather extreme place, a scorching hot gas giant a bit larger than Jupiter that is a striking cobalt blue color and ...
An eccentric Jupiter is a Jovian planet that orbits its star in an eccentric orbit. [1] Eccentric Jupiters may disqualify a planetary system from having Earth-like planets (though not always from having habitable exomoons ) in it, because a massive gas giant with an eccentric orbit may eject all Earth mass exoplanets from the habitable zone ...