What is the maximum radius of cold planets?
Planets have maximum radii close to that of Jupiter. Qualitatively, the reason for this maximum size is that, as one adds mass, the force of gravity becomes sufficiently strong to cause the radius to decrease. We show that this effect can be understood quantitatively using a simple variational principle very similar to that used to compute the size of the hydrogen atom.
Authors
- David Garfinkle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4415-774X)
- A. G. Rojo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3417-2877)
Institutions
- Oakland University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- American Journal of Physics
- Published
- 2025-10-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0226963
- Primary Topic
- Astro and Planetary Science
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Science Foundation