If an element becoming colder slows the atoms down, which makes them more likely to be solid, than why are all the gas giants furthest from the sun?
In: Planetary Science
The gas giants are made of a very specific couple of gases. Hydrogen and helium. To become a solid or liquid, not only must a gas slow down enough, it also has to stick together. Hydrogen and helium have near zero attraction to themselves or eachother, so they don’t become a liquid or solid until *very* low temperatures.
They’re also extremely abundant, which is why the gas giants are *giant* and mostly made of these gases. They’re just everywhere. The next question is, why is our dear Earth not also mostly hydrogen?
It does have a lot of hydrogen in it, but way less than the average across space, and this is because the sun gobbled up much of the hydrogen in the inner solar system and its radiation quickly blasts away anything left over. If we release helium into the air right now, it will float up near space and get blown away by the sun.
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