Ice Giants

Uranus and Neptune are smaller and have a different composition than Jupiter and Saturn, they are known as ice giants. Jupiter and Saturn have enormous mantles of metallic hydrogen which act like metal due to the pressure and temperature inside these planets.

Uranus and Neptune have some hydrogen and helium in their composition, but they also have heavier elements including oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. 

Definition of Ice giant

Ice giants are large planets made up mostly of heavier elements than helium and hydrogen. Uranus and Neptune, the ice giants, are mostly made up of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and sulfur, the next most abundant elements in the Sun after hydrogen and helium.

In our solar system, how many ice giants are there?

Our solar system has two ice giants:

• Uranus 

Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system. Above a small rocky core, a heated dense fluid of “icy” components – water, methane, and ammonia – makes up the majority (80 percent or more) of the planet’s mass. It warms up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the core.

• Neptune

Neptune is one of the outer solar system’s two ice giants. Above a small, rocky core, a heated dense fluid of “icy” components – water, methane, and ammonia – makes up the majority (80 percent or more) of the planet’s mass. Neptune is the densest of the big planets.

Formation of an ice giant

The formation of Uranus and Neptune via a similar core accretion mechanism is significantly more difficult. Small protoplanets about 20 astronomical units (AU) from the Solar System’s center would have had a similar escape velocity to their relative velocities. Such bodies that crossed the orbits of Saturn or Jupiter would have been ejected from the system on hyperbolic paths. Such bodies would have been swept away by the gas giants and either accreted into the larger planets or hurled into cometary orbits.

Given the orbital difficulties that protoplanets 20 AU or further from the Sun would face, a straightforward explanation is that the ice giants formed between Jupiter and Saturn’s orbits before being gravitationally scattered outward to their now more distant orbits.

Ice Giants’ Characteristics

• Helium and hydrogen make up around 90% of the mass of gas giants, with a small rocky core accounting for the remaining 10%. 
• Sulfur, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen make up ice giants. These are the most prevalent elements in the universe, and they are heavier than hydrogen and helium.
• Hydrogen makes up less than 20% of an ice giant’s mass, and it lacks the depth required for the pressure to generate a metallic hydrogen core.

Atmosphere of Uranus

Helium and hydrogen make up Uranus’ atmosphere, which fills the planet’s outer atmosphere. Uranus’ blue hue is attributable to methane gas, which makes up less than 3% of its atmosphere. The lower and dense troposphere, the stratosphere, and the outermost thermosphere are the three layers of Uranus’ atmosphere.

Atmosphere of Neptune

Neptune’s atmosphere covers up between 5% and 10% of its mass and exerts pressure 100,000 times greater than that of Earth. The outside atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, with traces of methane. The blue tint associated with Neptune is caused by methane’s absorption of light. The troposphere, where temperatures decline with altitude, and the stratosphere, where temperatures increase with altitude, are the two parts of the planet’s atmosphere.

On Ice Giant Planets, the Weather

Neptune’s winds are the fastest in the Solar System, reaching 1,300 mph. In the earth’s atmosphere, the heat from the core causes extraordinarily high wind speeds, resulting in visible wind storms.

Uranus, like Neptune, emits heat, though to a lesser degree. Although the planet’s atmosphere looks to be tranquil, winds are blowing at 560 mph.

Conclusion

We learned that Uranus and Neptune belong to a different class of giant planets than Jupiter and Saturn, which are gas giants with hydrogen and helium as their primary constituents. As a result, Neptune and Uranus have been dubbed “ice giants. The examination of all of the planetary types that we have the knowledge of, which may be a small sample of the extraterrestrial diversity that exists, is naturally beneficial to exoplanetary science since it helps to limit the features of exoplanetary systems.