– 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?

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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?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I love this Reddit comment from a few years ago, recommend you read it – https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/12eggw/seeing_as_how_jupiter_is_a_gas_giant_what_would/c6ulszb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The lower you go, the denser it gets (pressure will turn moist into water) and eventually, solid.

Anonymous 0 Comments

To help visualize what a supercritical fluid is like, check out this Nile Blue video. Especially at the 12 minute mark when he puts silica beads into the chamber. There’s no visible liquid, but the beads move like they’re in a liquid. It’s a gas when the density of liquid. Crazy to see.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Don’t think of earth gas or atmosphere. We have a pretty small atmosphere compared to Jupiter. The air around earth gets more dense as you travel down. There’s 3 times as much air at sea level then at the top of Mt. Everest, for example.

Now imagine that the earth is way, way bigger. With a much bigger atmosphere. When an earth-level atmosphere, you keep on falling. After about another 90km, the atmospheric pressure is 10 times that of sea level on earth, and the temperature is around 70 Celsius (160 F). So it is already hotter and a lot more dense.

Now, Earth ocean water is quite a bit more dense than this, but if you are an asteroid, any air you rub against creates friction and heat and starts to break you up. An asteroid falling into Jupiter is already hitting way, way more molecules, just from falling through a much bigger atmosphere, and then even after hitting Earth sea-level density, it keeps falling through thicker and thicker atmosphere. All that is going to keep breaking it up and burning it up.