An ice giant is type of giant planet composed largely of materials less volatile than hydrogen and helium. It became known in the 1990s that Uranus and Neptune were really a distinct class of giant planet, composed of about 20% hydrogen, compared to the heavier gas giant's 90%. They are thought to lack metallic hydrogen at their cores, instead, mostly heavier elements including supercritical water.
In March 2012, it was found that the compressiblity of water used in ice-giant models could be off one third. The value is important for modeling ice giants, and has a ripple effect understanding of them. Ice giants include Uranus, Neptune, and exoplanets so categorized.
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or giant:
“A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn . . .
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet. . . .
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones’ should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
“In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)