Do gas giants actually have a solid core? If so, how big are they usually?
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Yes they do have solid cores, but very small compared to their total size. There is no “surface” though between the gas and the solid core though. As you go deeper and deeper into a gas giant the atmosphere undergoes phase changes. Think a slow transition from thin gas to a very hot, very dense, very viscous liquid, and at certain depths with enough pressure, solid hydrogen just from the pressure.
How big: One estimate suggests that Jupiter has a core one and a half times the size of Earth, but thirty times heavier.
But we’re not really sure, and as others have said, the dividing line between dense gas and solid is pretty blurry.
Follow up: how can you tell from earth that a planet is a gas giant?
Any one else thought OP meant Chevron, Mobil, Shell, etc.?
Follow up question. How do they form and turn into that state? Surley the gravity required is immense and would be near impossible to happen?
Yes, but not necessarily rocky. Solid has a very interesting definition when you’re talking about pressures like that. It transitions gradually from a gas to a liquid to a solid as you go down. Can you imagine solid hydrogen?
>Do gas giants actually have a solid core? If so, how big are they usually?
Nobody knows for sure. We know our own planet’s core because we used seismometers to listen to the sound waves as earthquakes and explosives bounced off of the various layers.
In order to do anything like that with a gas giant, we would have to hang multiple strings of microphones from balloons floating in the atmosphere, then set off powerful explosives, possibly nukes, to generate a sound wave that can propagate through the gas giant’s atmosphere and be detectable to the microphones.
Until that happens, the most we can do is speculate.
Gas giants to have a solid metallic core made from hydrogen. I dunno about all of them but at least some do.
Hydrogen can become so compressed it becomes metallic and generates enough static electricity to create an ionosphere .
Gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn, are pretty cool and mysterious planets. Imagine a big balloon filled with air, but instead of air, it’s filled with lots of gases like hydrogen and helium. These gases keep swirling around and make the planet look like a colorful marble from far away.
Now, let’s talk about the core. Yes, gas giants do have cores, but they’re not solid like a rock. Instead, the core is more like a super squished and compressed ball of stuff. It’s like if you could squeeze a soft sponge really, really hard until it becomes very dense.
The cores of gas giants are made up of heavier stuff, like rock and metal, which is hidden beneath all the layers of gases. But because these planets have such strong gravity, the gases on the outside are really heavy, and they press down on the core, making it squished and dense.
As for how big the cores are, they can vary. Scientists think that the cores of gas giants are quite a bit smaller than the whole planet. For example, Jupiter’s core might be around 20 times the mass of Earth. That might sound big, but remember, the whole planet is super huge compared to Earth.
So, even though gas giants don’t have solid cores like a rocky planet, they definitely have something dense and heavy at their center that helps make them the fascinating planets they are!
Not fully explaining the direct question.
But it’s helpful to remember that explain like I’m 5: there are three phases of matter (solid, liquid and gas). Explain like you’re a bit older: there’s also plasma. Explain like I’m even older: matter phase is complex.
To simplify a very complex subject and try to explain like I’m five: as pressure and temperature change you get a whole range of phases that are a bit more complex and go from gas to solid to some other more interesting stuff.
Jupiter is big. The closer to the centre you get there more weight from its own stuff there is, so more pressure. So as you get further in you go from more gassy, to something that’s more liquidy to something that’s more solidy.
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