Which of the planets listed below is called an Ice Giant?

The first four planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are called the Terrestrial Planets. A terrestrial planet or rocky planet is a planet that is composed of primarily silicate rocks or metals.

The next two planets (Jupiter and Saturn) are called the Gas Giants. This is due the their composition of Hydrogen and Helium. They are very large but much less dense than the earth.

The last two planets (Uranus and Neptune) are called the Ice Giants because of the extremely cold temperatures on these planets. This is due to the great distance they are from the sun.

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58 Comments

jldavis

Uranus is also an ice giant planet

djd

But it wasn’t one of the four listed was it?jldavis,

Pokeemoon

I guess by the colour: blue = ice, red = fire; & got it right

Lee

johnbheymann, Pluto is no longer classed as one of our celestial plantets. Due to its small size in nature, is was declassified to a explanation.

Aldo

johnbheymann, Since 2006, Pluto has been downgraded to a dwarf planet.

johnbheymann

And what about Pluton? You did not mention that planet !

Chris Brown

Angel Attanasio,: Don't worry too much, Angel, in Roman mythology, he is still the god of the underworld.

Chris Brown

I am an amateur, as was my maternal grandfather.

grahamcarla

Angel Attanasio, I agree. They demoted Pluto because as for as humans have been able to track orbits, Pluto has never fully around the sun. But it's so far away and it's been around zillions of years before we started tracking, how can the trackers be so sure. Very unfair to Pluto and very contentious.

Captain can't Quiz

Pluto is now classed as a dwarf planet.

vasily tchaikovsky

Good Q thanks Google,I know now

Todd Van Dell

Angel Attanasio, Mine too. But, they downgraded Pluto from planet status to dwarf planet. Another dwarf planet Eris was discovered in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune and because Eris and Pluto are roughly the same size, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet. Here is an explanation from Wikipedia's entry regarding Pluto: "Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was originally considered to be the ninth planet from the Sun. After 1992, its status as a planet was questioned following the discovery of several objects of similar size in the Kuiper belt. In 2005, Eris, a dwarf planet in the scattered disc which is 27% more massive than Pluto, was discovered. This led the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define the term "planet" formally in 2006, during their 26th General Assembly. That definition excluded Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf planet. Pluto is the largest and second-most-massive (after Eris) known dwarf planet in the Solar System, and the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object directly orbiting the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume but is less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is primarily made of ice and rock and is relatively small—about one-sixth the mass of the Moon and one-third its volume. It has a moderately eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 30 to 49 astronomical units or AU (4.4–7.4 billion km) from the Sun. This means that Pluto periodically comes closer to the Sun than Neptune, but a stable orbital resonance with Neptune prevents them from colliding. Light from the Sun takes about 5.5 hours to reach Pluto at its average distance (39.5 AU)." For the record, the distance of Earth to the sun is 93,000,000 miles, or, 1 Astronomical Unit. Also, Pluto has still not completed one revolution around the sun, as one revolution is equivalent to 247.68 earth years.