Ice giant in mass. In 1952, science fiction writer James Blish coined the term "gas giant" and it was used to refer to the large non-terrestrial planets of the Solar System. However, in the 1990s, the compositions of Uranus and Neptune were discovered to be significantly different from those of Jupiter and Saturn. They are primarily composed of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, constituting a separate type of giant planet altogether. Because during their formation Uranus and Neptune incorporated their material as either ices or gas trapped in water ice, the term "ice giant" came into use. Modelling the formation of
Sudarsky's gas giant classification their modeled physical atmospheric properties. In the Solar System, only Jupiter and Saturn are within the Sudarsky classification, and both are Class I. The appearance of planets that are not gas giants cannot be predicted by the Sudarsky system, for example terrestrial planets such as Earth and Venus, HD 85512 b (3.6 Earth masses) and OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb (5.5 Earth masses), or ice giants such as Uranus (14 Earth masses) and Neptune (17 Earth masses). The appearance of extrasolar planets is largely unknown because of the difficulty in making direct observations of extrasolar planets. In addition, analogies with planets in the Solar