Smallest Gas Giant Ever?

Beny873

B
So, out on my ventures I stumbled across a rather odd Class I gas giant.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I was told that Gas Giants usually have to be around 9-12 Earth masses to form?
This sucker is a whopping 2.3 Earth Masses and has a radius roughly double earths.
Please explain? I've submitted a ticket as I'm guessing it is a bug.

Still found it amusing. Maybe I just discovered a whole new class of planet that has broken the laws of physics. I SHALL BE REWARDED WITH THE NOBLE PEACE PRIZE OF ELITE :p Jokes.

Still entertaining.
Picture

Screenshot_0168_zpsmobmcbsd.png


Penny for your thoughts?
 

Beny873

B
Hmm. Certainly a freak of nature. Shoulda taken more pictures. Had some good sized rings too...relative to it's size.
 

Bomba Luigi

Bomba Luigi
It can happen that you have some planets/Gas Giants that fall of the usual scale one side or the other, have seen some of these very small Gas Giant myself when out exploring, some of them are even Moons of other gas Giants. Or in one case I even had a small Gas Giant being the moon of an Icy Planet.
 

Beny873

B
Yeah. I've seen plenty of Binary Gas Giants before.

But from my knowledge of astronomy this shouldn't be physically possible unless it has relatively large rocky core. It will then be a Gas Dwarf or something rather. I'm not well versed in planetary classification.
But even then it should then be heavier then 2.2 Earth masses if I'm running the numbers correctly.
 

Stupid_hippy

Stupid_hippy
From the wiki page :

Although the words "gas" and "giant" are often combined, hydrogen planets need not be as large as the familiar gas giants from the Solar System.A gas dwarf could be defined as a planet with a rocky core that has accumulated a thick envelope of hydrogen, helium and other volatiles, having as result a total radius between 1.7 and 3.9 Earth-radii.[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_giant#cite_note-9"][9][/URL]

The smallest known extrasolar planet that is likely a "gas planet" is Kepler-138d, which has the same mass as Earth but is 60% larger and therefore has a density that indicates a thick gas envelope.
 

Beny873

B
Well there you go...

But it says it is a gas giant.
Perhaps the stellar forges terminology needs to be refined a bit?
 

Eros

Eros
neat - it depends on what materials are in that area when the planetary system forms. if it is outside the freeze out zone, then you could easily get hydrogen / helium rich planets. I suspect it would be somewhat fuzzy but should be possible if you can get the mass to collapse and it is cool enough
 

Beny873

B
Hmmm. If I'm remembering correctly it was a prodominately Iron and Rocky system. Certainly outside the hot zone. It was orbiting an M class but closer then Jupiter. It is a very cold planet though at 36K.

Eh.
0.8 is quite the record to beat. Shall be on the look out. It does make me wonder about the extraordinary planets out there that people won't pick up because they lack the knowledge. But that is why this game is great I guess. It teaches you stuff if you are willing to learn.
 

Roqinn

Roqinn
You beat the one I found then. The one I found was 3 Earth masses. Grats =)
You should post this is the Exploration forum. Maybe it will make it into the record books!
 
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