Gas giant

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For the band, see Gas Giants (band).
Jupiter photographed by New Horizons in January 2007
Saturn at equinox, photographed by Cassini in August 2009

A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.[1] Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term “gas giant” was originally synonymous with “giant planet”, but in the 1990s it became known that Uranus and Neptune are really a distinct class of giant planets, being composed mainly of heavier volatile substances (which are referred to as “ices”). For this reason, Uranus and Neptune are now often classified in the separate category of ice giants.[2]

Jupiter and Saturn consist mostly of hydrogen and helium, with heavier elements making up between 3-13 percent of the mass.[3] They are thought to consist of an outer layer of compressed molecular hydrogen surrounding a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen, with probably a molten rocky core inside. The outermost portion of their hydrogen atmosphere contains many layers of visible clouds that are mostly composed of water and ammonia. The layer of metallic hydrogen located in the mid-interior makes up the bulk of every gas giant, and is referred to as “metallic” because the very large atmospheric pressure turns hydrogen into an electrical conductor. The gas giants’ cores are thought to consist of heavier elements at such high temperatures (20,000 K) and pressures that their properties are not yet completely understood.[3]

The defining differences between a very low-mass brown dwarf (which can have a mass as low as roughly 13 times that of Jupiter[4]) and a gas giant are debated.[5] One school of thought is based on formation; the other, on the physics of the interior.[5] Part of the debate concerns whether brown dwarfs must, by definition, have experienced nuclear fusion at some point in their history.

Terminology[]

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] Other than solids in the core and the upper layers of the atmosphere, all matter is above the critical point, where there is no distinction between liquids and gases.[8] The term has nevertheless caught on, because planetary scientists typically use “rock”, “gas”, and “ice” as shorthands for classes of elements and compounds commonly found as planetary constituents, irrespective of what phase the matter may appear in. In the outer Solar System, hydrogen and helium are referred to as “gases”; water, methane, and ammonia as “ices”; and silicates and metals as “rocks”. In this terminology, since Uranus and Neptune are primarily composed of ices, not gas, they are more commonly called ice giants and distinct from the gas giants.

Classification[]

Main article: Sudarsky's gas giant classification

Theoretically, gas giants can be divided into five distinct classes according to their modeled physical atmospheric properties, and hence their appearance: ammonia clouds (I), water clouds (II), cloudless (III), alkali-metal clouds (IV), and silicate clouds (V). Jupiter and Saturn are both class I. Hot Jupiters are class IV or V.

Extrasolar[]

Artist's impression of the formation of a gas giant around the star HD 100546

Cold gas giants[]

A cold hydrogen-rich gas giant more massive than Jupiter but less than about 500 MEarth (1.6 MJ) will only be slightly larger in volume than Jupiter.[9] For masses above 500 MEarth, gravity will cause the planet to shrink (see degenerate matter).[9]

Kelvin–Helmholtz heating can cause a gas giant to radiate more energy than it receives from its host star.[10][11]

Gas dwarfs[]

Main article: Gas dwarf

Although the words "gas" and "giant" are often combined, hydrogen planets need not be as large as the familiar gas giants from the Solar System. However, smaller gas planets and planets closer to their star will lose atmospheric mass more quickly via hydrodynamic escape than larger planets and planets farther out.[12][13]

A gas dwarf could be defined as a planet with a rocky core that has accumulated a thick envelope of hydrogen, helium and other volatiles, having as result a total radius between 1.7 and 3.9 Earth-radii.[14][15]

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]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ D'Angelo, G.; Lissauer, J. J. (2018). "Formation of Giant Planets". In Deeg H., Belmonte J. (ed.). Handbook of Exoplanets. Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature. pp. 2319–2343. arXiv:1806.05649. Bibcode:2018haex.bookE.140D. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-55333-7_140. ISBN 978-3-319-55332-0. S2CID 116913980.
  2. ^ National Aeronautics and Space Administration website, Ten Things to Know About Neptune
  3. ^ a b The Interior of Jupiter, Guillot et al., in Jupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere, Bagenal et al., editors, Cambridge University Press, 2004
  4. ^ Bodenheimer, Peter; D'Angelo, Gennaro; Lissauer, Jack J.; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Saumon, Didier (2013). "Deuterium Burning in Massive Giant Planets and Low-mass Brown Dwarfs Formed by Core-nucleated Accretion". The Astrophysical Journal. 770 (2): 120. arXiv:1305.0980. Bibcode:2013ApJ...770..120B. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/770/2/120. S2CID 118553341.
  5. ^ a b Burgasser, Adam J. (June 2008). "Brown dwarfs: Failed stars, super Jupiters" (PDF). Physics Today. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 May 2013. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  6. ^ Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, Entry for gas giant n.
  7. ^ D'Angelo, G.; Durisen, R. H.; Lissauer, J. J. (2011). "Giant Planet Formation". In S. Seager. (ed.). Exoplanets. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ. pp. 319–346. arXiv:1006.5486. Bibcode:2010exop.book..319D.
  8. ^ D'Angelo, G.; Weidenschilling, S. J.; Lissauer, J. J.; Bodenheimer, P. (2021). "Growth of Jupiter: Formation in disks of gas and solids and evolution to the present epoch". Icarus. 355: 114087. arXiv:2009.05575. Bibcode:2021Icar..35514087D. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114087. S2CID 221654962.
  9. ^ a b Seager, S.; Kuchner, M.; Hier-Majumder, C. A.; Militzer, B. (2007). "Mass-Radius Relationships for Solid Exoplanets". The Astrophysical Journal. 669 (2): 1279–1297. arXiv:0707.2895. Bibcode:2007ApJ...669.1279S. doi:10.1086/521346. S2CID 8369390.
  10. ^ Patrick G. J. Irwin (2003). Giant Planets of Our Solar System: Atmospheres, Composition, and Structure. Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-00681-7.
  11. ^ "Class 12 – Giant Planets – Heat and Formation". 3750 – Planets, Moons & Rings. Colorado University, Boulder. 2004. Archived from the original on 2008-06-21. Retrieved 2008-03-13.
  12. ^ Feng Tian; Toon, Owen B.; Pavlov, Alexander A.; De Sterck, H. (March 10, 2005). "Transonic hydrodynamic escape of hydrogen from extrasolar planetary atmospheres". The Astrophysical Journal. 621 (2): 1049–1060. Bibcode:2005ApJ...621.1049T. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.122.9085. doi:10.1086/427204.
  13. ^ Mass-radius relationships for exoplanets, Damian C. Swift, Jon Eggert, Damien G. Hicks, Sebastien Hamel, Kyle Caspersen, Eric Schwegler, and Gilbert W. Collins
  14. ^ Three regimes of extrasolar planets inferred from host star metallicities, Buchhave et al.
  15. ^ D'Angelo, G.; Bodenheimer, P. (2016). "In Situ and Ex Situ Formation Models of Kepler 11 Planets". The Astrophysical Journal. 1606 (1): in press. arXiv:1606.08088. Bibcode:2016ApJ...828...33D. doi:10.3847/0004-637X/828/1/33. S2CID 119203398.
  16. ^ Cowen, Ron (2014). "Earth-mass exoplanet is no Earth twin". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2014.14477. S2CID 124963676.
  17. ^ *Mass-Radius Relationships for Very Low Mass Gaseous Planets, Konstantin Batygin, David J. Stevenson, 18 Apr 2013
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