Do gass giants have a solid center or could you in theory fly straight through one?

r/

As the title says, are gass giants fully gass or di we know if they have solid cores? This is something I have always wondered about but even Google wont tell me what I want

Comments

  1. Yriziros Avatar

    I remember reading they do have solid cores with gas on the surface, but I’m not sure about the ratio

  2. Pesec1 Avatar

    First of all, gas gets so dense that it is denser than iron. You cannot fly through such gas.

    Second, yes. Hydrogen becomes a metal at pressure close to the core.

  3. OldCarWorshipper Avatar

    The deeper you go through the layers of a gas giant, you first have the gassy outer layers, then as you go deeper a liquid mantle under incredibly high pressure, and finally a rocky core.

  4. Ridley_Himself Avatar

    They are thought to have solid (or liquid) cores but even without them, you couldn’t just fly through them.

    Saying they are made of gas is not entirely accurate. They are made mainly of hydrogen and helium, which are gasses under most conditions, but they go into other states due to the tremendous pressure inside those planets. Go down deep enough and the gas turns into something called a supercritical fluid, a state of matter that is sort of between a liquid and a gas. At higher pressures you’ll find an even stranger state of matter called liquid metallic hydrogen.

    The interiors of these planets are also extremely hot.

  5. TheRedPimento Avatar

    I have been called a “gas giant,” and my doctor says I should work on my core because right now it’s pretty flabby.

  6. Super_Science_Guy Avatar

    I’ve wondered this for years.

  7. mouaragon Avatar

    I have always wanted to know the answer of this question. Thanks OP for asking.

  8. green_meklar Avatar

    Yes, they have dense cores, either solid or highly compressed liquid. Some of that solid or liquid stuff can even be the same chemicals as their atmospheres, just under such high pressure that they aren’t really gas anymore.

  9. Desperate_Owl_594 Avatar

    I mean…you’d die but their cores would be more liquid because of pressure. You wouldn’t hit anything solid, but you’d die WAAAAY before coming anywhere close.

    IIRC there was an attempt and it disintegrated.