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The term gas giant was coined in 1952 by the science fiction writer James Blish [6] and was originally used to refer to all giant planets.It is, arguably, something of a misnomer because throughout most of the volume of all giant planets, the pressure is so high that matter is not in gaseous form. [7]
For the very hottest gas giants, with temperatures above 1400 K (2100 °F, 1100 °C) or cooler planets with lower gravity than Jupiter, the silicate and iron cloud decks are predicted to lie high up in the atmosphere. The predicted Bond albedo of a class V planet around a Sun-like star is 0.55, due to reflection by the cloud decks.
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...
Astronomers have identified a planet that’s bigger than Jupiter yet surprisingly as fluffy and light as cotton candy. The gas giants in our solar system — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune ...
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.
Planets whose orbits lie within the orbit of Earth. [nb 1] Inner planet: A planet in the Solar System that have orbits smaller than the asteroid belt. [nb 2] Outer planet: A planet in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants. Pulsar planet: A planet that orbits a pulsar or a rapidly rotating neutron star ...
For the giant planets, the "radius" is defined as the distance from the center at which the atmosphere reaches 1 bar of atmospheric pressure. [ 11 ] Because Sedna and 2002 MS 4 have no known moons, directly determining their mass is impossible without sending a probe (estimated to be from 1.7x10 21 to 6.1×10 21 kg for Sedna [ 12 ] ).
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun.It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant.Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or volatiles.