Giant planets articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    An axisymmetric, equatorial jet in Jupiter’s interior has a wavelike fluctuation with a 4-year period, revealing hidden aspects of the magnetic field within the metallic hydrogen region and constraining the dynamo that generates the magnetic field.

    • Jeremy Bloxham
    • , Hao Cao
    •  & Scott J. Bolton

  • Article |

    The JWST MIRI transmission spectrum of WASP-107b, a transiting planet with Neptune-like mass and Jupiter-like radius, shows observations of sulfur dioxide and silicate clouds but no methane in its atmosphere, providing evidence of disequilibrium chemistry and active photochemistry.

    • Achrène Dyrek
    • , Michiel Min
    •  & Gillian Wright

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Observations from the JWST show the presence of a spectral absorption feature at 4.05 μm arising from SO2 in the atmosphere of the gas giant exoplanet WASP-39b, which is produced by photochemical processes and verified by numerical models.

    • Shang-Min Tsai
    • , Elspeth K. H. Lee
    •  & Sergei N. Yurchenko

  • Article |

    Simulations using machine-learning-based interatomic potentials in dense hydrogen overcome system size and timescale limitations, providing evidence of a supercritical behaviour of high-pressure liquid hydrogen and reconciling theoretical and experimental discrepancies.

    • Bingqing Cheng
    • , Guglielmo Mazzola
    •  & Michele Ceriotti

  • Article |

    Observations of TOI-849b reveal a radius smaller than Neptune’s but a large mass of about 40 Earth masses, indicating that the planet is the remnant core of a gas giant.

    • David J. Armstrong
    • , Théo A. Lopez
    •  & Zhuchang Zhan

  • Article |

    Observations of an accretion disk around a hot white dwarf star reveal that the chemical abundances in its disk are similar to those thought to exist deep in icy giant planets, so the white dwarf must be accreting a giant planet.

    • Boris T. Gänsicke
    • , Matthias R. Schreiber
    •  & Christopher J. Manser

  • Letter |

    An energetic head-on collision between a large impactor and the proto-Jupiter with a primordial compact core could have mixed the heavy elements within the deep interior, leading to a ‘diluted’ core for Jupiter.

    • Shang-Fei Liu
    • , Yasunori Hori
    •  & Andrea Isella

  • Letter |

    The atomic structure of H2O is documented at several million atmospheres of pressure and temperatures of several thousand degrees, revealing shockwave-induced ultrafast crystallization and a novel water ice phase, ice XVIII, with exotic superionic properties.

    • Marius Millot
    • , Federica Coppari
    •  & Jon H. Eggert

  • Letter |

    Hubble Space Telescope observations of the seventh inner moon of Neptune, Hippocamp, show that it is smaller than the other six, orbits near Proteus and probably originates from a fragment of Proteus.

    • M. R. Showalter
    • , I. de Pater
    •  & R. S. French

  • Letter |

    Observations of broadband emission from lightning on Jupiter at 600 megahertz show a lightning discharge mechanism similar to that of terrestrial lightning and indicate increased moist convection near Jupiter’s poles.

    • Shannon Brown
    • , Michael Janssen
    •  & John Connerney

  • Letter |

    A detection of helium absorption at 10,833 Å on the exoplanet WASP-107b reveals that its atmosphere is extended and eroding, and demonstrates a new way to study upper exoplanetary atmospheres.

    • J. J. Spake
    • , D. K. Sing
    •  & N. Madhusudhan

  • Letter |

    The determination of Jupiter’s even gravitational moments by the Juno spacecraft reveals that more than three thousand kilometres below the cloud tops, differential rotation is suppressed and the gas giant’s interior rotates as a solid body.

    • T. Guillot
    • , Y. Miguel
    •  & S. J. Bolton

  • Letter |

    Visible and infrared images obtained from above each pole of Jupiter by the Juno spacecraft reveal polygonal patterns of large cyclones; it is unknown how these cyclones evolved, or how they persist without merging.

    • A. Adriani
    • , A. Mura
    •  & M. Amoroso

  • Letter |

    Precise Doppler tracking of the Juno spacecraft in its polar orbit around Jupiter is used to determine the planet’s gravity harmonics, showing north–south asymmetry caused by atmospheric and interior flows.

    • L. Iess
    • , W. M. Folkner
    •  & S. J. Bolton

  • Letter |

    Observations of the gas-giant exoplanet WASP-121b reveal near-infrared emission lines of water, suggesting that the planet has a stratosphere—a layer in the upper atmosphere where temperature increases with altitude.

    • Thomas M. Evans
    • , David K. Sing
    •  & Roxana Lupu

  • Letter |

    The upper atmosphere above Jupiter’s Great Red Spot—the largest storm in the Solar System—is hundreds of degrees hotter than anywhere else on the planet; the heating must come from below, suggesting coupling between Jupiter’s lower and upper atmospheres, probably the result of upwardly propagating acoustic or gravity waves.

    • J. O’Donoghue
    • , L. Moore
    •  & H. Melin

  • Letter |

    Gas-giant planets are widely thought to form from solid ‘cores’ of roughly ten Earth masses; simulations now show that such cores can be produced from ‘pebbles’ (centimetre-to-metre-sized objects) provided that the pebbles form sufficiently slowly, leading to the formation of one to four gas giants in agreement with the observed structure of the Solar System.

    • Harold F. Levison
    • , Katherine A. Kretke
    •  & Martin J. Duncan

  • Letter |

    Observations of the south pole of the Saturnian moon Enceladus revealed large rifts in the terrain that were found to be the sources of the observed jets of water vapour; now it is shown that much of the eruptive activity can be explained by broad, curtain-like eruptions, many of which were probably misinterpreted previously as discrete jets.

    • Joseph N. Spitale
    • , Terry A. Hurford
    •  & Symeon S. Platts

  • Letter |

    New laboratory techniques for applying enormous pressures allow diamond to be compressed to 50 million atmospheres, providing insight into the interiors of planets and theoretical implications.

    • R. F. Smith
    • , J. H. Eggert
    •  & G. W. Collins

  • Letter |

    Observations of a stellar occultation by (10199) Chariklo, a minor body that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune, reveal that it has a ring system, a property previously observed only for the four giant planets of the Solar System.

    • F. Braga-Ribas
    • , B. Sicardy
    •  & D. G. Lambas

  • Letter |

    A map of the surface of a brown dwarf reveals features that suggest patchy clouds, providing the mechanism for the dispersal of atmospheric dust as brown dwarfs cool with age.

    • I. J. M. Crossfield
    • , B. Biller
    •  & T. Kopytova

  • Letter |

    On Uranus and Neptune, the measured fourth-order gravity harmonic, J4, constrains the atmospheric dynamics to the outermost 0.15 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, of the planetary mass, indicating that these dynamics are confined to a thin weather layer no more than 1,000 kilometres deep on both planets.

    • Yohai Kaspi
    • , Adam P. Showman
    •  & Ravit Helled

  • Letter |

    A pattern of features is detected, superposed on Saturn’s low-latitude infrared glow, that implies the transfer of charged species derived from water (ring ‘rain’) from the ring plane to the ionosphere, ultimately leading to the global modulation of upper atmospheric chemistry.

    • J. O’Donoghue
    • , T. S. Stallard
    •  & J. S. D. Blake

  • Letter |

    Numerical simulations of a widely separated binary star system demonstrate that planetary systems around one star may often be strongly perturbed by the other star, triggering planetary ejections and increasing the orbital eccentricities of surviving planets.

    • Nathan A. Kaib
    • , Sean N. Raymond
    •  & Martin Duncan

  • Letter |

    The detection of carbon monoxide absorption in the spectrum of the extrasolar planet τ Boötis b, and its tracing of the change in the radial velocity of the planet, demonstrates that atmospheric characterization is possible for non-transiting planets.

    • Matteo Brogi
    • , Ignas A. G. Snellen
    •  & Ernst J. W. de Mooij

  • News |

    Scientists have discovered how fast the Solar System's outermost planet rotates, but it still holds many mysteries.

    • Richard A. Lovett

  • News & Views |

    Springtime on Saturn came in with a bang last December, when a massive storm erupted in its north temperate zone. This rare event has been observed in unprecedented detail from the ground and from space. See Letters p.71 & p.75

    • Peter Read

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of an inner giant planet in the unusually massive solar system around the star HR 8799 creates an ensemble of planets that is difficult to explain with prevailing theories of planet formation. See Letter p.1080

    • Laird Close

  • Letter |

    High-contrast near-infrared imaging of the nearby star HR 8799 has shown three giant planets. Here, the presence of a fourth planet, interior to and about the same mass as the other three, is reported. The system, with this additional planet, represents a challenge for current planet formation models as none of them can explain the in situ formation of all four planets.

    • Christian Marois
    • , B. Zuckerman
    •  & Travis Barman

  • Letter |

    A population of Saturn's small moons orbiting outside the main rings are less than 107 years old, which is inconsistent with the formation timescale for the regular satellites. They may have accreted at the rings' edge, but hitherto it has been impossible to model the accretion process. Here a simulation is reported in which the viscous spreading of Saturn's rings beyond the Roche limit gives rise to the small moons.

    • Sébastien Charnoz
    • , Julien Salmon
    •  & Aurélien Crida

  • Letter |

    Of the more than 400 known exoplanets, about 70 transit their central star, most in small orbits (with periods of around 1 day, for instance). Here, observations are reported of the transit of CoRoT-9b, which orbits with a period of 95.274 days, on a low eccentricity, around a solar-like star. Its relatively large periastron distance yields a 'temperate' photospheric temperature estimated to be between 250 and 430 K, and its interior composition is inferred to be consistent with those of Jupiter and Saturn.

    • H. J. Deeg
    • , C. Moutou
    •  & G. Wuchterl

Browse broader subjects

Browse Giant planets across other nature.com journals