Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Gas Giant, Silicate Minerals, Socalled
19 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
The gas giants are sometimes known as the jovian planets (after jupiter, the largest) or the ice giants. A definition of a gas giant planet is: A large, low-density planet composed primarily of hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia in either gaseous or liquid state. The four gas giants in the solar system are: jupiter, saturn, uranus and neptune (fig. 2): all are surrounded by systems of rings and natural satellites, all rotate rapidly, resulting in strong atmospheric winds that produce cloud bands that parallel their equators. Jupiter rotates fastest, thus has the most prominent bands. Before we go further with these topics, it"s best to clarify our use of the words gas", ice" and rock". When we get out to these jovian planets, that common usage just falls apart. The outermost atmospheres of all 4 planets consist of molecular hydrogen and (less) helium (i. e. , actual gas state).
