Gas Planets vs Rock Planets

General physics and astronomy discussions not directly related to Celestia
Avatar
Topic author
PlutonianEmpire M
Posts: 1374
Joined: 09.09.2004
Age: 40
With us: 20 years 3 months
Location: MinneSNOWta
Contact:

Gas Planets vs Rock Planets

Post #1by PlutonianEmpire » 29.11.2009, 06:28

A while ago, in the Help forum, I posted about a rogue gas planet overcoming Earth. My question is, what happens to the gas planet, with a 32,000 km radius, and similar in composition to Neptune, when and after it consumes the Earth, never mind that such an event is extremely unlikely?
Terraformed Pluto: Now with New Horizons maps! :D

Avatar
Hungry4info
Posts: 1133
Joined: 11.09.2005
With us: 19 years 3 months
Location: Indiana, United States

Re: Gas Planets vs Rock Planets

Post #2by Hungry4info » 29.11.2009, 14:28

A planet with a similar composition to Neptune will be an ice giant (e.g. Neptune, Uranus, GJ 436 b, HAT-P-11 b), whose interiors are dominated by ice. Gas giants are planets whose interiors are dominated by gas.

If SL9 was anything to go by, if a gas giant planet gets hit by an Earth-like object, it's going to make one heck of a bang. Earth will probably sink in and merge with the core, adding just another Earth-mass of matter to a 100+ Earth-mass planet. In the long run, I would expect the gas giant to just be slightly more massive, probably the same size.
Current Setup:
Windows 7 64 bit. Celestia 1.6.0.
AMD Athlon Processor, 1.6 Ghz, 3 Gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

Planet X
Posts: 79
Joined: 07.03.2005
With us: 19 years 9 months
Location: booted from planethood

Re: Gas Planets vs Rock Planets

Post #3by Planet X » 16.12.2009, 15:08

I imagine such an impact would leave an impressive "bruise" on the gas giant's cloudtops as well. Think of the Shoemaker-Levy impact magnified a million times! Later!

J P


Return to “Physics and Astronomy”