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Are all gas giants made of helium and hydrogen?
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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2026
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Most of the universe is hydrogen.
I don't know if we can tell reliably (yet) what exoplanets are made of, but generally the assumption is that our solar system is chemically typical, so we extrapolate that for other star systems.
We actually can, from stellar transits!
Some of them are pretty weird. Molten silica clouds and rain come immediately to mind.
Most matter is hydrogen but then, supposedly, there is dark matter and dark energy 😯 !
There is a new model that I read about the other day that avoids the need for dark matter/energy and extends the age of the universe.
I've always (armchair astro physicist) thought that the dark matter/energy was always just a fudge to fit an ill-fitting model to observations (which isn't inherently wrong). It just means the model is wrong.
i like that as well