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Gas giants

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planet classObservedModel
Cold gas giant
A gas giant far enough from its star that ammonia freezes into clouds high in its atmosphere, like Jupiter and Saturn. Its own internal heat rivals the sunlight it absorbs, and it can keep large families of moons and rings.
planet classObservedModel
Gas giant
A planet made mostly of hydrogen and helium, with no solid surface, from about a tenth of Jupiter's mass up to the brown dwarf boundary near 13 Jupiter masses. Jupiter and Saturn are the Solar System's two; thousands more are known around other stars.
planet classObservedSim
Hot Jupiter
A gas giant orbiting so close to its star that its year lasts days and its dayside is hotter than lava. Hot Jupiters were the first planets found around Sun-like stars and remain the best-studied exoplanet atmospheres, though fewer than one Sun-like star in a hundred has one.
planet classModelSim
Sudarsky classification
A theoretical scheme from 2000 that sorts giant planets into five classes by the temperature of their upper atmospheres, which decides what clouds can form and so how much light, and what colour, the planet reflects.
planet classObservedModel
Temperate gas giant
A gas giant warmer than Jupiter but cooler than a hot Jupiter, roughly 150 to 800 K, where ammonia clouds give way to water clouds and then to clear air. It spans the widest range of looks of any giant, from brilliant white to dark blue.