Gas Giant Planets Essay

The Giant planets
Lesson 8.8
Introduction:
Gas giants fall into different categories. So-called “traditional” gas giants include Jupiter. Jupiter is such a classic example of a gas giant that gas giants are often referred to as Jovian planets despite the fact that some gas giants ,ice giants for instance are very different from Jupiter. Traditional gas giants have high levels of hydrogen and helium. Another category of gas giants is ice giants. Ice giants are also composed of small amounts of hydrogen and helium; however, they have high levels of what are called “ices.” These ices include methane, water, and ammonia. I. Objectives:
A. Identify the different kinds of giants planet
B. Explain the structure of the giants planets II. Learning Content: There are four gas giants in our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. As noted, Jupiter is a traditional gas giant. Saturn is also a traditional gas giant. However, Uranus and
In terms of size, Saturn, with a diameter of 120,000km is not a world away from Jupiter, with a 142,000km diameter. However the other two planets, Uranus and Neptune have diameters of 'only' 51,800km and 50,000km respectively - roughly the size of the core of Saturn or Jupiter. This large size difference is responsible for many other differences between the two groups, for instance Jupiter and Saturn both have sufficiently high internal pressures to 'squeeze' large quantities of Hydrogen into a metallic state in their cores, whilst Uranus and Neptune can produce only a tiny fraction of this amount. As a consequence, their magnetic fields are much smaller than those of Saturn and Jupiter, whose magnetic fields are generated in large part thanks to electrical currents moving through this