"Gravitational compression" refers to the process of squeezing or shrinking an object due to the force of gravity. When something is under
gravitational compression, it is being pressed together by the strong pull of gravity.
Full definition
The increase in temperature as you go lower in the atmosphere comes from
static gravitational compression of that atmosphere, as predicted by the ideal gas law itself.
Eventually,
gravitational compression again will cause the internal temperature until the hydrogen shell around the now inert core begins to fuse into helium, which settles into a middle layer.
Accounting
for gravitational compression, however, Mercury is the second densest after Earth, with 98 percent of its «mean» or compressed density (5.43 versus 5.52 gm / cm3, see NASA Planetary Factsheet).
Neptune's own internal heat source — heat generated by
the gravitational compression of gases — may be the weather engine.
Based on its high metal content and excluding the effects of
gravitational compression, Mercury is the densest major planetary body in the Solar System, with about 1.2 times the uncompressed density of the Earth which averages 4.4 gm / cm3 (Murchie et al, Scientific American, March 2011).