Jupiter and gas giants?

Question

this may be a stupid questions but when they call jupiter one of the gas giant planets,does this mean there is no solid core,and would'nt a planet made of gas not have as great a gravitational pull

Answer 1

Well it is surmised that Jupiter doesn't have a solid core because at the core heat would be too high for a "solid" state of any known matter to exist. (our own core is liquid)
As far as gravitational pull it is still not quite determined HOW gravity works but it seems that the more the mass (even if the mass is a gas ) the higher the gravitational pull of the object. Jupiter may be "only" gas but there is ALOT of it. (the sun is only gas too and that mass is TREMENDOUS)

Answer 2

I did a bit of astronomy at University, but not much so my answer will be incomplete. Jupiter is a great ball of gas. Sure there is a core there, but its super compressed gas (I dont know if it is considered a solid in this state or indeed if other elements do form a part solid core). As for gravitational pull, gravity is an unknown force that is associated with mass. Jupiter is a "wanna be" Sun, so its pretty massive and has a decent gravity well, not sure how many earth equivalents though.

Answer 3

The sun is about 1% "metals" which means all elements heavier than Helium, which is higher than most stars. Jupiter (and the Earth and all other planets) formed simultanously out of the same stuff as the sun, so Jupiter is presumed to have the same or similar ratios of elements. Since Jupiter is ~360 Earth masses, it follows that there must be enough heavy stuff to make about 3.6 Earths or thereabouts. The rest is gas, mostly hydrogen and about 10% Helium. Jupiter has been described as a "failed star" but Jupiter would need about 10 times the mass in order to be the dimmest red dwarf, so this is somewhat of a misnomer. However, when you accumulate that much Hydrogen and Helium in one spot, there is no problem with gravity keeping it all together, even if it is all (or 99%) gas.

Answer 4

The "reason" they say Jupiter has a core is that at a certain depth, even Gasses become COMPRESSED to such a degree that they liquify, which is what happens on Juipiter. So, Jupiter has a "Liquid Metal Core." If our Ocean were deep enough, the same might happen here, but its not, not by a long shot. Also, Jupiter's "day" is much shorter than ours meaning it spins faster keeping a "tighter" gravitational pull on its atmosphere to keep it from slipping away and giving it yet more mass. Great question.

Answer 5

No. Jupiter is a gas giant because its is made up of gas surrounding a dense liquid core. And just because its gas doesn't mean it doesn't have mass. It's a lot of gas surrounded a fairly large and dense core. It may not weigh much in comparison to a rocky planet, but it has more mass than the Earth and greater gravitational pull.

Answer 6

Well, we believe that gas giants do not have a solid core but they are so large that they have more overall mass than a smaller planet with a solid core...there is more matter there...gravity is the result of mass on space/time...in effect mass acts on space/time like a canonball on a trampoline..if you roll a golf ball toward it then the bigger mass will attract the smaller body...because gas giants have so much more overall mass they have more gravity...it would be the same if you took say teaspoon of a neutron star which is very small but has great mass because it is so compressed...then roll a teaspoon of iron toward in on our imaginary trampoline and the iron would travel incredibly fast toward the neutron teaspoon...except that a teaspoon of neutron star would weigh as much as a mountain...we still have not compromised space/time but we have come close...once a neutron star reaches critical mass and affects how light travels near it we have a black hole...Stephen Hawking would better describe those effects than anything I can tell you but it still doesn't supercede what Einstein has said about the speed of light and relativity.

Answer 7

Good question - I don't know if there has been a definite answer on what comprises Jupiter's core, but the planet is massive enough that it definitely has a greater gravitiational pull than Earth. If it didn't, we probably wouldn't be here to discuss it due to Jupiter "vacuuming" up comets and asteroids traveling through the solar system.

Answer 8

It's not a stupid question. A gas giant has an atmosphere thousands of km. thick. What's at the centre? We can't completely rule out a rocky core. Other possibilities are a core of metallic hydrogen; when hydrogen is compressed enough it becomes metallic. There may even be a core of diamond. There's plenty of carbon in the gas giants, and diamond is the stable allotrope of carbon at the temperatures and pressures near their centres.

Answer 9

The core may be liquid hydrogen under great pressure. Jupiter is so light being mostly gas that if you could place Jupiter in a pool of water it would float.

Answer 10

The gas planets do not have solid surfaces, their gaseous material simply gets denser with depth (the radii and diameters quoted for the planets are for levels corresponding to a pressure of 1 atmosphere). What we see when looking at these planets is the tops of clouds high in their atmospheres (slightly above the 1 atmosphere level).

Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material amounting to something like 10 to 15 Earth-masses.

Above the core lies the main bulk of the planet in the form of liquid metallic hydrogen. This exotic form of the most common of elements is possible only at pressures exceeding 4 million bars, as is the case in the interior of Jupiter (and Saturn). Liquid metallic hydrogen consists of ionized protons and electrons (like the interior of the Sun but at a far lower temperature). At the temperature and pressure of Jupiter's interior hydrogen is a liquid, not a gas. It is an electrical conductor and the source of Jupiter's magnetic field. This layer probably also contains some helium and traces of various "ices".

Jupiter radiates more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. The interior of Jupiter is hot: the core is probably about 20,000 K. The heat is generated by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism, the slow gravitational compression of the planet. (Jupiter does NOT produce energy by nuclear fusion as in the Sun; it is much too small and hence its interior is too cool to ignite nuclear reactions.) This interior heat probably causes convection deep within Jupiter's liquid layers and is probably responsible for the complex motions we see in the cloud tops. Saturn and Neptune are similar to Jupiter in this respect, but oddly, Uranus is not.

Jupiter is just about as large in diameter as a gas planet can be. If more material were to be added, it would be compressed by gravity such that the overall radius would increase only slightly. A star can be larger only because of its internal (nuclear) heat source. (But Jupiter would have to be at least 80 times more massive to become a star.)

Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, much stronger than Earth's. Its magnetosphere extends more than 650 million km (past the orbit of Saturn!). (Note that Jupiter's magnetosphere is far from spherical -- it extends "only" a few million kilometers in the direction toward the Sun.) Jupiter's moons therefore lie within its magnetosphere, a fact which may partially explain some of the activity on Io. Unfortunately for future space travelers and of real concern to the designers of the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, the environment near Jupiter contains high levels of energetic particles trapped by Jupiter's magnetic field. This "radiation" is similar to, but much more intense than, that found within Earth's Van Allen belts. It would be immediately fatal to an unprotected human being.
The Galileo atmospheric probe discovered a new intense radiation belt between Jupiter's ring and the uppermost atmospheric layers. This new belt is approximately 10 times as strong as Earth's Van Allen radiation belts. Surprisingly, this new belt was also found to contain high energy helium ions of unknown origin.

Source: http://www.nineplanets.org/jupiter.html