I learned growing up that gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter are mostly gas. What does that mean exactly? Do they have a ground/crust or is it just gas all the way through?
In: Physics
They are very gassy, the upper layers are mainly gas, but as you go lower and lower the pressure from all the above gas will eventually become solid/liquid
Given the fact they will inevitably been hit by meteors in the past there will be some solid material at the centre. But this is only a small percentage of the planets mass.
From what little I know… They don’t have a ground/crust the same way the Earth does. As you get deeper and deeper into the planet the pressure increases to monumental levels. It compacts the gas into a liquid like state.
We don’t know for certain, but basically it starts out as a thin gas at the “surface”, and as you go deeper, it becomes thicker, and if you go deep enough, there’s so much pressure from gravity it condenses into a liquid. So there’s an ocean of hydrogen down there somewhere.
It’s speculated that there *might* be a small rocky core, but it’s mostly just gas: about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with a tiny amount of other stuff mixed in.
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