History Main / StrollingOnJupiter

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': one possible result from investigating an anomaly on a gas giant is to discover that the gas giant is in fact a rocky, barren world with an unusually thick cloud cover. Your astronomers are noted to be deeply embarrassed by the mistake. It is possible to encounter this anomaly in the Sol system.

* ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy:'' The original story, published in ''Marvel Super-Heroes'', depicts Jupiter as having a surface. This is incredibly impossible, so after a few decades it was changed to mankind having established floating cities on Jupiter, which is also impossible, just not quite as impossible as the previous example.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Neptune evidently has a hard surface and an atmosphere a human can breathe. A few Neptunians try invading earth, only for Wondy to overthrow their dictatorship.

* In ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'' ghosts that attempt to leave their designated haunting zone are transported to Saturn, which is portrayed as a vast desert populated by {{Sand Worm}}s that attempt to eat them.

A more common, recent adaptation of this trope is having the characters land/live on the rocky ''moon'' of a gas giant-- indeed the concept of terraformed or habitable moons of surface-less gas planets has become quite popular in media and pop culture, and is more scientifically plausible given the discovery of [[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-depth.amp liquid oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa.]]

* ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': In the final book, ''Skeleton Men of Jupiter'', John Carter is taken from Mars to Jupiter. Like Mars, the planet is depicted with a solid surface that even has forests and water, and is inhabited by two sentient races.

* ''TabletopGame/UrbanJungle'': The "Astounding Science" supplement has life on all four giant planets, in homage to its' serial and pulp inspirations. Jupiter and Uranus have solid ground beneath their clouds, inhabited by hexapedal felines and silicoid armadillos respectively. While Neptune is a water world with shark people. Saturn might actually be a gas giant but the rings have an envelope of breathable air and dragon-like residents flying between the ice chunks.

[[DiscreditedTrope These days]], it's pretty well known that the four largest planets in our solar system lack anything resembling "solid ground” in the conventional sense. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn are primarily composed of a gassy atmosphere, and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are mostly a mix of semiliquid methane and water misleadingly called "ices". Although they do have outer cores composed of more solid material (surrounding their molten inner cores), they are not stable surfaces but rather sunken gasses that are under so much pressure from the super-thick atmosphere above that they are forcibly compacted into a firm and often superheated mass. Thus, even if you magically bypassed the unimaginably crushing pressure of the atmosphere, you would be landing on more of a slushy expanse of quicksand than a rocky surface. [[ScienceMarchesOn However, this was not widely understood until the mid-twentieth century]], which has led some sci-fi authors to speculate that there might be solid ground under the cloud layers which might even support life.

[[DiscreditedTrope These days]], it's pretty well known that the four largest planets in our solar system lack anything resembling "solid ground” in the conventional sense. The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn are primarily composed of a gassy atmosphere, and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune are mostly a mix of semiliquid methane and water misleadingly called "ices". Although they do have inner cores composed of solid rocky material, they are under so much pressure from the super-thick atmospheres above them that any landing attempts would be utterly impossible by modern technology. [[ScienceMarchesOn However, this was not widely understood until the mid-twentieth century]], which has led some sci-fi authors to speculate that there might be solid ground under the cloud layers which might even support life.

A more common, recent adaptation of this trope is having the characters land/live on a ''moon'' of a gas giant-- indeed the concept of terraformed or habitable moons of surface-less gas planets has become quite popular in media and pop culture, and is more scientifically plausible given the discovery of [[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/in-depth.amp liquid oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa.]]

* "Literature/{{Micromegas}}" has a humanoid native of Saturn as one of the characters.
* "Literature/NotFinal": Jupiter has, beneath miles of increasingly thick atmosphere, a solid surface inhabited by a xenophobic alien race who set out to exterminate humanity when they make radio contact with a colony on Ganymede. In the sequel "Literature/VictoryUnintentional" a trio of heavily overengineered robots are sent down to Jupiter's surface to ascertain the Jovians' technology, it's under a million Earth atmospheres of pressure at a temperature of -70 degrees Celsius. [[spoiler: Neither the environments nor the Jovians' heat rays phase the robots in the slightest, and the Jovians surrender thinking they were humans.]]

* ''They Fly So High'' by Ross Rocklynne (''Magazine/AmazingStories'' June 1952), two men AbandonShip over Jupiter and are caught in its gravity well. Their pressure-suits with ArtificialGravity protect them as they're falling into the gas giant, until they land on a surface of a strange liquid made solid by surface tension. It's also stated there's a DomedCity somewhere near the Great Red Spot.

* ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'': In the final book, ''Skeleton Men of Jupiter'', John Carter is taken from Mars to Jupiter. Like Mars, the planet is depicted with a solid surface that has even forests and water, and is inhabited by two sentient races.

* UpToEleven in ''VideoGame/{{Futurama}}'', where the frigging '''SUN''' (which is actually a ''star'', but Administrivia/TropesAreFlexible) is [[ConvectionShmonvection inhabited]]!

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': The Planet Express crew visits the north pole of Neptune to deliver letters to Robot Santa. It's shown to have a breathable atmosphere, covered in solid ice, and inhabited by four-armed Neptunians and Yetis.

[[folder:Film]]

** The ''VideoGame/FrackinUniverse'' mod plays this straight, featuring gas giants as a biome that can be landed on thanks to floating islands of SolidClouds and/or asteroids. Functionally, they're similar to ocean planets except with gases instead of liquids.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'', where trying to land on a gas giant will give you a message from your ship telling you that it's not possible. [[https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1475245421&searchtext=gas+planet Not that it hasn't stopped some enterprising modders from trying...]]

->''You're not sure how you even landed on the surface of a gas giant. But it's probably best not to think about it for too long...''

While there are some massive exosolar planets - specifically, the rocky [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Earth Super-Earth]]s and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-Earth Mega-Earth]]s - that may be capable of sustaining multicellular life, this trope is specifically concerned with gas giants being depicted as having a surface with native life, or at least one capable of supporting visitors.

While there are some massive exosolar planets that are [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-Earth solid]] and may be capable of sustaining multicellular life, this trope is specifically concerned with gas giants being depicted as having a surface with native life, or at least one capable of supporting visitors.