– How do gas giants not have a surface? Where do asteroids and comets go when they get sucked in? What’s at the center of a gas giant?

Question

This has always baffled me. I can’t really understand how they could just not have a surface no matter how far down you go. Obviously gravity has to pull the gasses together into some more dense form eventually… right?

In: 775

Answer 1

>Obviously gravity has to pull the gasses together into some more dense form eventually

Yes, but there isn’t necessarily a sharp phase transition. At high pressures and temperatures, there is a supercritical region, where the boundary between gas and liquid disappears. So there may be a boundary between liquid and solid, but it’s deep inside the planet.

At the core there will be heavier elements that sank through the lighter elements.