I mean, how do we get a certain quantity of gas matter to become an actual planet? Is there anything inside it? How is, say, Jupiter’s core?
In: Planetary Science
The heavy elements making up the planet would have all fallen into the center. Just like on our own planet we believe the core is made mostly of nickel and iron.
Outside of that is where all the gasses (mostly hydrogen) are collected and add a significant portion of the planet’s mass and volume
The initial formation of the planets would be much as our own and the other terrestrial planets.
Once the sun started undergoing fusion, the light pressure pushed all of the gasses to the outer solar system, where it could form into gas giants, leaving the inner planets rocky.
In the following few hundred million years, the solar system stabilized to how it is now, none of the outer planets being dropped into the inner solar system to make a “hot Jupiter” like we have observed in other solar systems.
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