Talk:Giant planet

message: I modified this paragraph beyond recognition:
Many of the extrasolar planets which have been discovered have masses of several times Jupiter's mass, and on the basis of this it has been suggested that these may be gas giants. However, it is important to note that the detection techniques that have been used to identify extrasolar planets so far (detecting doppler shift in the star's spectrum due to the wobble induced by the planet's orbit) are much more adept at detecting giant planets than smaller ones and therefore this sample may be biased.  In addition, with a few exceptions, the actual composition and structure of extrasolar planets have not been observed and many of the extrasolar planets are much closer to their parent stars and hence much hotter than gas giants in the solar system, making it possible that some of those planets are a type not observed in the solar system.
I think the new version is better, but ymmv.
Mark Foskey
This article could be clearer about the difference between gas giants and brown dwarves. The latter article says: "Density is a clear giveaway. Brown dwarfs are all about the same radius and volume; so anything that size with over 10 Jupiter masses is unlikely to be a planet" while this article says gas giants are planets and can exist up to ~70 Jupiter masses. Horatio 12:09, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: modified paragraph

message: The article has gotten long and I do not want to jump in while it is changing in so many places, but I feel that this statement:  "the name is defensible because their compositions are dominated by hydrogen and helium, which are gases in the outer solar system when not under pressure." is misleading.  Helium will be in gaseous state anywhere in these planets, I believe, because it has to be cooled so much to liquefy.  I also thought hydrogen could be in a metalllic state in Jupiter (helping explain the magnetic field).  So I think "gas giants" refers mainly to the paucity of rock.  Carrionluggage 17:43, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi, I created that sentence, but I was just copyediting for clarity and have no scientific background, so if you think it's wrong you should change it. The Singing Badger 18:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liquid Helium??? 

message: "Interestingly there appears to be a mass gap between the heaviest gas giant planets detected (about 10 times the mass of Jupiter) and the lightest red dwarfs." - is there? The missing objects would presumably be brown dwarfs, of which we now know a fair few. And there doesn't seem to be much of a gap between the brown dwarfs and large planets either - OTS 44 and Cha 110913-773444 seem to bridge the gap between planets and brown dwarfs. Am I missing something or is the article statement now outdated? Chaos syndrome 22:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mass gap? 

message: I wonder who put the "floating cities" in the "See also"--Spaceman 09:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floating cities 

message: There are two pictures in the article, one "to scale" the other "not to scale".  Yet both have pretty much the same relative sizes of the 4 planets.  Maybe they are both "to scale"?--345Kai 22:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To scale or not to scale? 

message: The scientific community has adopted the term "ice giant" to describe Uranus and Neptune, since they differ in both composition and evolution from their fellow giant planets Jupiter and Saturn.  This term is quickly gaining common usage; a separate article should be established for Ice Giant, preferably written by someone within the astrophysics field, and the link for such should no longer redirect to this page.PJtP 21:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If this article is renamed giant planet, and gas giant and ice giant are broken out as separate articles... 132.205.44.134 22:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is now under consideration, see #Requested move I -- 70.24.248.23 (talk) 14:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Ice Giant

message: Is Uranus really the most foul smelling gas giant?Astroman1111 11:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I think so. Or Neptune. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Uranus and Neptune

message: I have ascribed this to tidal force for the time being - rapid rotation does not explain it fully. It makes sense given that Jupiter has extremely turbulent bands (closest to the sun) while Uranus has very weak banding. I do not understand exactly how tidal forces can account for this at the mechanical level, but it seems reasonable. Comment please, and perhaps we can get some citations for it.--ChrisJMoor 00:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for trying to improve Wikipedia. Unfortunately, ascribing the banding on Jupiter to tidal forces based on it seeming reasonable is original research. The bands are caused by a combination of the Coriolis force and convection, the same mechanism that produces the jet streams and trade winds on Earth. Neitherday 05:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What causes the atmospheric banding exactly?

message: Asking for a bit of info I've never been able to find anywhere: When was Jupiter found to be a gaseous planet? this page was created by marysa--88.149.232.208 22:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discovery

message: Has anyone ever noticed that the color of the Jovian planets rougly matches the color spectrum:
1. Red - Jupiter is somewhat reddish/orangish/brownish, especially towards the middle.
2. Yellow - Saturn is yellowish/tanish.
3. Green - Uranus is greenish-blue.
4. Blue - Neptune is deep blue.
Augustus Alyosius Amadeus Ambrosius duGracie III (talk) 20:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Color Spectrum Seen in the Jovian Planets 

message: I notice that somebody was pointing out this distinction well over a year ago.  It's true -- Uranus and Neptune are not currently regarded within the astronomical community as gas giants.  They are ice giants.  Only Jupiter and Saturn, among the 8 Solar planets, are true gas giants.  The distinction between Jupiter-type planets (gas giants) and Neptune-type planets (ice giants) is regularly made in the literature on extrasolar planets.  I see the same two possibilities that were suggested previously:  1. Rename this article "giant planets" and separate it into two sections, one for gas giants and one for ice giants; or 2. Limit this article to true gas giants, and create a new article about ice giants.  Option 1 would be easier, but it would also be less scientific, because, as I'm saying, planetary astronomers no longer lump the four Solar System giants into one category.  What is the chain of decision-making here?Thuvan Dihn (talk) 23:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is now under consideration, see #Requested move I -- 70.24.248.23 (talk) 14:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ice Giants vs. Gas Giants, Again 

message: Superjovian planet and kin redirects here but the string "super" doesn't occur in the article. I cannot remember exactly where or what, but I think there is a definition (somewhere) of what constitutes a superjovian as opposed to jovian. It should then be noted that the maximum radius (and hence volume) of a superjovian approx equals that of Jupiter, with the exception of hot jupiters, whose atms are heated so that they inflate. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 09:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There was something about superjovians/superplanets/supergiant planets being more massive than the mass of the planet with the largest volume possible for a cold planet (roughly the size and mass of Jupiter)  ... more massive planets being smaller than this most large cold planet. PDF (p126). According to PDF (section4) the limit is . The calculations are based on the 1969 paper. 64.229.100.61 (talk) 00:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Super??

message: I don't know if anybody's noticed, but the first two items in the See Also section link to the exact same place. Specifically, "Appearance of extrasolar planets" and "Sudarsky extrasolar planet classification" both link to "Sudarsky extrasolar planet classification." Since the Sudarsky extrasolar planet classification is simply a way to classify the appearance of extrasolar planets, I would suggest the "Appearance" link be removed. 66.56.63.233 (talk) 11:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundancies in the "See Also" section  

message: I'm under the impression that "jovian" (lowercase) can refer to any gas planets, while "Jovian" (uppercase) usually refers specifically to Jupiter and its system of moons. Jovian, when used to mention all gas giants, should be lowercase in the article here much in the same way terrestrial, when referring to rocky planets, is lowercase in the same manner. Would I be out of place to edit the article's mentions of the word "jovian" when pertaining to gas giants and not the Jovian system?184.19.49.77 (talk) 06:46, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Jovian be capitalized? 

message: :Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *Support or *Oppose, then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.
* Comment—I'm somewhat on the fence about this one. I'm not sure this change in terminology has become sufficiently predominant to make "giant planet" the primary naming convention. In fact, in a number of cases, I see journal authors combining both terms, per "gas giant planet". Is it possible that the "giant planet" terminology is presently seeing increased usage because astronomers haven't been able to resolve (or spectroscopically analyze) many of the newly discovered exoplanets? That being said, "giant planet" is a logical naming convention that corresponds nicely to "dwarf planet". Regards, RJH (talk) 17:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: The following sentence caught my eye: "...Uranus and Neptune which are sometimes called ice giants, as they are mostly composed of water, ammonia, and methane molten ices." What is a "molten ice"? The only other mentions of molten ice I can find on Wikipedia refer to fiction. Ischaldirh (talk) 23:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ice Giants and "molten ice" 

message: From the Neptune article, which is currently a featured article.
Astronomers sometimes categorise Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" in order to emphasise these distinctions.[13] 
Neptune and Uranus are often considered a sub-class of gas giant termed "ice giants", due to their smaller size and higher concentrations of volatiles relative to Jupiter and Saturn.[44] 
Note these sources do not exclude Neptune from the category of gas giant, although they suggest that ice giant as a sub-category.Limefrost Spiral (talk) 01:02, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The term is evolving and I can see it both ways. Can we find a wording that leaves it somewhat open? Definitions for a planet, dwarf planet, meteoroid, or gas giant should have some wiggle room. -- Kheider (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

text: More fuzziness. Are super-Earths really mini-Neptunes? (Royal Astronomical Society 04 February 2013) -- Kheider (talk) 22:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Ice giants as subset of gas giants

message: Just for any editors who pass this, I started a draft (Draft:Helium rain experiments) based on some experiments that showed the possibility of "helium rain" inside gas giants.  Elijahandskip (talk) 20:46, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helium rain experiment draft