Gas Giants: Facts about the 4 Outer (Jovian) Planets

The four gas giants in our solar system rotate relatively faster than the Earth and other terrestrial planets. While a day on our planet lasts 24 hours, a day on Jupiter is only about 10 hours. 11 hours on Saturn, and about 17 and 16 Earth hours on Uranus and Neptune respectively. Moons are abundant among gas giant planets. With 82 moons

Giant planet | astronomy | Britannica

Other articles where giant planet is discussed: planet: Planets of the solar system: Jupiter to Neptune are called giant planets or Jovian planets. Between these two main groups is a belt of numerous small bodies called asteroids. After Ceres and other larger asteroids were discovered in the early 19th century, the bodies in this class were also referred to as minor planets or

Solar System Exploration

The solar system has eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There are five officially recognized dwarf planets in our solar system: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Get the Facts.

In Depth | Sun – NASA Solar System Exploration

Our scientists and far-ranging robots explore the wild frontiers of our solar system. The Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago in a giant, spinning cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula. As the nebula collapsed under its own gravity, it spun faster and flattened into a disk. Most of the nebula''s material was pulled toward the

Neptune

Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant major planet orbiting our Sun. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is not visible to the naked eye. Eyes on the Solar System lets you explore planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and the spacecraft exploring them from 1950 to 2050

What is a Gas Giant?

A gas giant is a large planet mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. These planets, like Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system, don''t have hard surfaces and instead have swirling gases above a solid core. Gas giant exoplanets can be

Solar System History 101

Our solar system is a wondrous place. Countless worlds lie spread across billions of kilometers of space, each dragged around the galaxy by our Sun like an elaborate clockwork.. The smaller, inner planets are rocky, and at least

Giant planet

OverviewSubtypesTerminologyDescriptionExtrasolar giant planetsAtmospheresSee alsoBibliography

Gas giants consist mostly of hydrogen and helium. The Solar System''s gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, have heavier elements making up between 3 and 13 percent of their mass. Gas giants are thought to consist of an outer layer of molecular hydrogen, surrounding a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen, with a probable molten core with a rocky composition.

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in our solar system. Adorned with a dazzling system of icy rings, Saturn is unique among the planets. Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium. The farthest planet from Earth discovered by the unaided human eye, Saturn has been known since ancient times.

7.1 Overview of Our Planetary System

Describe the types of small bodies in our solar system, their locations, and how they formed; Model the solar system with distances from everyday life to better comprehend distances in space; The solar system 1 consists of the Sun and many smaller objects: the planets, their moons and rings, and such "debris" as asteroids, comets, and dust

Giant planets migrated shortly after the Solar System''s

Early in the history of the Solar System, the giant planets — including Jupiter and Saturn — migrated under gravity into different orbits around the Sun, causing an epoch of chaos and collisions.

About the Planets

The giant planets in our outer solar system don''t have hard surfaces and instead have swirling gases above a core. Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants. Uranus and Neptune are ice giants. Jupiter Facts. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system – if it were a hollow shell, 1,000 Earths could fit inside.

Giant Magnetic Solar System

Full-color, realistically detailed magnets capture students'' attention as you model space science concepts on your whiteboard. Includes: 8 Planets Pluto (dwarf planet) Sun Earth''s moon Asteroid belt Activity Guide Largest magnet (Sun) measures 10'''' in d

Overview

The planets beyond our solar system are called "exoplanets," and they come in a wide variety of sizes, from gas giants larger than Jupiter to small, rocky planets about as big around as Earth or Mars. They can be hot enough to boil metal or locked in deep freeze.

Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet

· Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion

Formation and evolution of the Solar System

Artist''s conception of a protoplanetary disk. There is evidence that the formation of the Solar System began about 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. [1] Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other

Solar System

In the outer solar system, turbulent storms dot the atmospheres of the giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — allowing Hubble to become an expert storm tracker. For instance, Hubble has observed the downsizing of Jupiter''s most famous feature, the spinning, cyclone-like storm known as the Great Red Spot.

Neptune: A guide to the windy eighth planet from the sun

Our solar system''s blue gas giant is far larger than Earth, at more than 17 times Earth''s mass and nearly 58 times Earth''s volume, according to NASA. Neptune''s rocky core is surrounded by a slushy

In Depth | Our Solar System – NASA Solar System Exploration

The giant planets Jupiter and Saturn lead our solar system''s moon counts. In some ways, the swarms of moons around these worlds resemble mini versions of our solar system. Pluto, smaller than our own moon, has five moons in its orbit, including the Charon, a

The Solar System: Planets and Formation Explained

The night sky over New Zealand''s Southern Alps gives a spectacular view of the Milky Way, the galaxy in which our own solar system resides. Mike Mackinven / Getty Images. Our planet Earth is part of a solar system that consists of eight planets orbiting a giant, fiery star we call the sun. For thousands of years, astronomers studying the solar system have noticed

Solar system | Definition, Planets, Diagram, Videos, & Facts

· The solar system''s several billion comets are found mainly in two distinct reservoirs. The more-distant one, called the Oort cloud, is a spherical shell surrounding the solar system at a distance of approximately 50,000 astronomical units (AU)—more than 1,000 times the distance of Pluto''s orbit. The other reservoir, the Kuiper belt, is a thick disk-shaped zone whose main

Jupiter Facts

Jupiter took shape along with rest of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together to form this gas giant. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of the Sun, ending up with more than twice the combined material of the other bodies in the solar system.

Planet Sizes and Locations in Our Solar System

The closest dwarf planet to the Sun, and the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system, Ceres orbits the Sun from an average distance of 257 million miles (413 million kilometers) Ceres is about 2.8 times farther from the Sun than Earth. Compare Earth to other planets using NASA''s Eyes on the Solar System.

Uranus

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and it''s the third largest planet in our solar system – about four times wider than Earth. Use this tool to compare the ice giant to Earth, and other planets. Compare. An image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Uranus

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and it''s the third largest planet in our solar system – about four times wider than Earth. Use this tool to compare the ice giant to Earth, and other planets. Compare. An image of the planet Uranus

Jupiter Facts

Jupiter took shape along with rest of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together to form this gas giant. Jupiter took most of the mass left over after the formation of the Sun, ending up with more

Solar System History 101

Our solar system is a wondrous place. Countless worlds lie spread across billions of kilometers of space, each dragged around the galaxy by our Sun like an elaborate clockwork.. The smaller, inner planets are rocky, and at least one has life on it. The giant outer planets are shrouded in gas and ice; miniature solar systems in their own right that boast intricate rings

Gas Giant Facts (The Outer Planets)

The gas and ice giant planets take longer to orbit the Sun because of their great distances. The farther away they are, the more time it takes to make one trip around the Sun. The densities of the gas giants are much less than the densities of the rocky, terrestrial worlds of the solar system. Gas giants are not all gas.

Moons of Our Solar System

How Many Moons Are in Our Solar System? Naturally-formed bodies that orbit planets are called moons, or planetary satellites. The best-known planetary satellite is, of course, Earth''s Moon. Since it was named before we learned about other planetary satellites, it is called simply "Moon." According to the NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics team, the current tally []