Astronomy 1021 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: The Moons, Ammonium Hydrosulfide, Galilean Moons
10 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Jovian planets are mostly made of hydrogen, helium and hydrogen compounds, and differ primarily in their relative proportions of hydrogen compounds. Jupiter and saturn have only a small amount of hydrogen compounds. Uranus and neptune are made primarily of hydrogen compounds i. e. water, methane and ammonia. The jovian planets farther from the sun took longer to form and captured less hydrogen and helium gas, explaining why uranus and neptune have larger proportions of hydrogen compounds, rock and metal. Jovian giants have high pressures and temperatures in their interiors. If you plunged below jupiter"s clouds you"d never encounter a solid surface just ever denser and hotter hydrogen/helium compressed into bizarre liquid and metallic phases. The jovian planets have global magnetic fields generated by motions of charged particles deep in their interiors. Jupiter"s magnetic field is the strongest, 20,000x stronger than earth"s. Saturn"s magnetic field is weaker than jupiter"s because it has a thinner layer of electrically conducting materials.
