Class V's and Metal Rich moons..

[Sugarat]

Today I found this beautiful Class V Gas Giant..

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.. as well as looking great it had 8 Metal Rich moons.

This is the second such case I have found recently (the first had 9 Metal Rich moons), so am now wondering..
.. are Metal Rich moons commonly found around Class V's and if so, why?

 

[Jackie Silver]

There could be two reasons, I think. Class V gas giants are very hot, and that heat comes from either (or both) a lot of heat from the star, or a lot of heat because they're so massive that they generate heat themself.

If the heat is coming from the star, then any moons of the gas giant will also feel that same heat, so they're likely to be MRW.

If the gas giant is naturally hot because it is so massive, then the moons may be near enough to get a hefty dose of heat from the gas giant as well as from the star, so they're likely to be MRW.

 

[Ziljan]

Empirically, it's easy to draw connection between heat and metal, but its a correlation, not a causation. Higher mass systems generally have hotter stars, hence more heat. However, outside of supernovae level temperatures and pressures, heat cannot create/cause Metal content. Certainly not the relatively minuscule heat from a star or a gas giant.

But Jackie is right that a more massive gas giant would probably have a greater chance of having MR or HMC planets simply because there is more mass available, thus more metal available (assuming the star is population I, ie fairly young). Thus the cores of planets are more likely to contain iron, etc.

 

[Redfox]

Interesting. Will keep this in mind and check with any future Class V I come across.