Astronomy Asked by Carlos Vázquez Monzón on September 28, 2021
Since gas giant consist of most gas components, where do we establish their "surface"?
My take is basically to take the limit in which all light is opaque. For example, in this photo:
The surface, then, will be the limit of the black blackground with the planet.
Any other way to formally define the "surface" of a gas giant?
There are two common definitions in use for the surface of gas planets:
There is no hard relation between those two surfaces, but in general their altitude will not be different by more than a scale height, as at around 0.1-1 bar the gaseous atomic and molecular bands become enormously pressure broadened, which makes the atmosphere quickly opaque at most wavelengths, for the usual gas giant components.
Correct answer by AtmosphericPrisonEscape on September 28, 2021
Any other way to formally define the "surface" of a gas giant?
Other than what Michael and AtmosphericPrisonEscape are proposing, you could also set the surface at the actual surface of Jupiter's metallic liquid core. The four gas giants (except Saturn perhaps which may be fully gaseous) have solid or liquid cores that have an actual surface. Jupiter's liquid core is about as big as the Earth and has about 10 Earth masses.
Answered by Ioannes on September 28, 2021
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