gas giant n.
a large planet composed mostly of gaseous material thought to surround a solid core; spec. each of the four largest planets in the solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune)
SF Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
-
1952
James Blish
bibliography
A quick glance over the boards revealed that there was a magnetic field of some strength near by, one that didnโt belong to the invisible gas giant revolving half a million miles away.
Solar Plexus in J. Merril Beyond Human Ken 106 -
1955
page image
James Blish
bibliography
On worlds where only extreme modifications of the human form would make it suitableโfor instance, a planet of the gas giant typeโno seeding is attempted.
Watershed in Worlds of If Mar. 42/2
-
1979
page image
Owen Davies
Five of the encounter probes would be specially designed to study gas-giant planets similar to Jupiter.
First Starship in Omni Jan. 78/2
-
1990
Greg Bear
B-3 was already known to moonbased astronomers; it is a huge gas giant some ten miles larger than Jupiter.
Queen of Angels (1991) .iv. 17
-
1994
Inward there were two gas giants for an ample supply of hydrogen and helium, and a thin belt of rubble for heavier metals.
Heroic Myth Lieutenant Nora Argamentine in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars VI . 175
-
1995
Alan Dean Foster
The outermost was a gas giant, a lonely but colorful banded sentinel the size of Neptune.
Life Form . 1
-
2005
Iain M. Banks
Sunlight poured from the purple sky visible between the curve of eastward horizon (hills, haze) and the enormous overhanging bulk of the gas-giant planet Nasqueron filling the majority of the sky (motley with all the colours of the spectrum below bright yellow, multitudinously spotted, ubiquitously zoned and belted with wild liquidic squiggles).
Algebraist Prologue 3
Research requirements
antedating 1952
Earliest cite
James Blish, 'Solar Plexus'
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1955 cite from James Blish's "Watershed". Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1954 reprint in an anthology ("Beyond Human Ken" ed. Judith Merril) of James Blish's "Solar Plexus". Alistair Durie checked the first publication of this story (in Astonishing Stories, September 1941), but Blish apparently rewrote the story, and the cite does not appear in this first publication. Fred Galvin located the cite in the the Merril anthology's 1952 first publication.Earliest cite in the OED: 1965
Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.