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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined and slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun.
A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. [1] Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System . The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with " giant planet ".
A giant planet, sometimes referred to as a jovian planet (Jove being another name for the Roman god Jupiter), is a diverse type of planet much larger than Earth. Giant planets are usually primarily composed of low-boiling point materials (), rather than rock or other solid matter, but massive solid planets can also exist.
For the very hottest gas giants, with temperatures above 1400 K (2100 °F, 1100 °C) or cooler planets with lower gravity than Jupiter, the silicate and iron cloud decks are predicted to lie high up in the atmosphere. The predicted Bond albedo of a class V planet around a Sun-like star is 0.55, due to reflection by the cloud decks.
Eccentric Jupiter: A gas giant that orbits its star in an eccentric orbit. Exoplanet: A planet that does not orbit the Sun, but a different star, a stellar remnant, or a brown dwarf. Extragalactic planet: An exoplanet outside the Milky Way. Goldilocks planet: A planet with an orbit that falls within the star's habitable zone.
In the 1990s, it was determined that Uranus and Neptune were a distinct class of giant planet, separate from the other giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, which are gas giants predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium. [1] As such, Neptune and Uranus are now referred to as ice giants. Lacking well-defined solid surfaces, they are primarily ...
Astronomers have identified a planet that’s bigger than Jupiter yet surprisingly as fluffy and light as cotton candy. The gas giants in our solar system — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune ...
Jupiter and Saturn most likely formed around previously existing rocky and/or icy bodies, rendering these previous primordial planets into gas-giant cores. [5] This is the planetary core accretion model of planet formation.