Gas giant Gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are sometimes known as failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet", but in the 1990s it became known that Uranus and Neptune are really a distinct class of giant planet, being composed mainly of heavier volatile substances (which are referred to as "ices"). For this reason, Uranus and Neptune are now often classified in the separate category
Triatomic hydrogen gas was unstable, but at the same time also confirmed that the cation existed. In 1917 Gerald Wendt and William Duane discovered that hydrogen gas subjected to alpha particles shrank in volume and thought that diatomic hydrogen was converted to triatomic. After this researchers thought that active hydrogen could be the triatomic form. Joseph Lévine went so far as to postulate that low pressure systems on the Earth happened due to triatomic hydrogen high in the atmosphere. In 1920 Wendt and Landauer named the substance "Hyzone" in analogy to ozone and its extra reactivity over normal hydrogen. Earlier Gottfried Wilhelm