The fifth planet from the sun is Jupiter. The gas giant has a lot of surprising scientists.
The "king of the planets" is shrouded in colorful clouds and is named after a Roman god. The Great Red Spot is twice the width of the planet.
Galileo discovered Jupiter's four large moons in 1610 and helped to change how we view the universe. The first time that stars were seen circling an object other than Earth was to support the view that Earth wasn't the center of the universe.
Jupiter and its moons have been investigated by the NASA vehicle.
There are gas giants in our solar system.
NASA says that Jupiter is more massive than all the other planets. Jupiter holds more than 1,300 Earths. Earth is the size of a grape if Jupiter were the size of a basketball.
Jupiter was formed from gasses left over from the formation of the sun. The planet would have become a star if it had been more massive.
Jupiter is large.
Jupiter's average distance from the sun is 778 million miles. Earth has an average distance from the sun.
The planet Jupiter is close to the sun at perihelion.
Jupiter is the furthest away from the sun at aphelion.
The atmosphere of Jupiter is similar to that of the sun. The center of the planet is covered in a layer of metallic hydrogen.
Strong east-west winds in the planet's upper atmosphere create the colorful light and dark bands that surround Jupiter. White clouds in the light zones are made of frozen ammonia, while dark clouds are made of other chemicals. Blue clouds can be seen at the deepest level. Clouds change over time.
Diamonds may fill the skies and hidden deep within the atmosphere is a dense core of unknown composition.
According to the University of Colorado at Boulder, Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field of all the planets. The magnetic field traps electrons and other charged particles in an intense belt that blasts the planet's moons and rings with radiation more than 1000 times the level lethal to a human NASA's Galileo probe can be damaged by the radiation. The magnetosphere of Jupiter swells out some 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 million to 3 million km) toward the sun, and then descends to a tail that extends more than 600 million miles (1 billion km) behind the giant planet.
During the probe's first data-gathering close approach to the giant planet, the star- tracker camera captured this view of Jupiter's faint rings. It is the first time that a view of the planet's rings can be seen. There is a star above the main ring and a belt in the lower right.
The Great Red Spot is a giant storm that has been around for more than 300 years. The Great Red Spot is twice the size of Earth and spins counterclockwise around its center at speeds of up to 450 mph. An anticyclone is a type of storm that has acounterclockwise spin.
The ammonia in Jupiter's clouds may be the source of the storm's color. The spot has been decreasing for a long time.
Jupiter has more than one storm. Jupiter's gargantuan polar cyclones are caused by heat rising from the lower altitudes to the higher atmosphere, similar to how the ocean works on Earth.
The Roman god of the same name is one of the reasons Jupiter has so many moons. Galileo Galilei discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter and they are sometimes called the "Galileolean moons".
The largest moon in our solar system is called ganymede. It is the only moon that has a magnetic field of its own. According to a study published in the journal Planetary and Space Science, the moon has at least one ocean between layers of ice, as well as atmospheric water vapor and water on top of one another. The European Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer will attempt to reach Jupiter's system in 2030.
Io is the most active volcano in the solar system. Io's solid surface rises 300 feet (100 meters) high as the planet's immense gravity causes "tides" in it. The volcanic eruptions help create strange radio waves from Jupiter by releasing tons of material into the space around the moon. Io has a yellow-orange appearance due to the sulfur it emits from its volcanos.
A liquid ocean that contains twice the amount of water as Earth's oceans could be hidden by the frozen crust of the planet. The Hubble Space Telescope spotted more water above the surface of the planet in 2021. The north pole of Europa was photographed for the first time in 2021, and the discovery of underwater volcanoes raised hopes that the planet could be a good place to live.
With the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA may one day send an underwater vehicle to explore the ocean. 40 to 45 flybys of the icy moon would be performed by NASA's Europa Clipper mission.
The lowest albedo is found on Callisto. It seems that the surface may be composed of dark rock. Callisto's surface may be concealing a secret ocean, according to NASA.
The discovery of Jupiter's three faint rings was a surprise. Jupiter's rings are made of continuous streams of dust particles that come from some of the planet's moons.
The main ring has been flattened by the Southwest Research Institute. It is more than 4,000 miles wide.
The halo is more than 12,000 miles thick. Grains are pushed away from the main ring by the forces of nature. The main ring and halo are made of dust.
The gossamer ring is made of debris from three of Jupiter's moons. According to a press release from NASA's Galileo mission, the gossamer ring is probably made up of dust particles about the same size as the particles found in cigarette smoke.
There are signs of comets and asteroids in the rings of Jupiter.
After arriving at Jupiter in 2016 with an intended lifespan of 20 months, the mission has been extended until 2025.
Seven missions have been flown by Jupiter. Two missions have traveled around the planet.
The Great Red Spot and close up pictures of Jupiter's polar regions were provided by Pioneer 11. Astronomers were able to create the first detailed maps of the Galilean satellites, discover Jupiter's rings, and detect lightning in Jupiter's clouds. Scientists thought the solar wind had a small impact on Jupiter's magnetosphere. The pictures of Jupiter and its moons were taken by NewHorizons.
Galileo arrived in 1995 and sent a probe to Jupiter that made the first direct measurement of the planet's atmosphere and amount of water. The system was studied for eight years. When Galileo ran low on fuel, it crashed into Jupiter in order to avoid the risk that it would bring life to Earth.
In order to figure out how Jupiter and the rest of the solar system formed, Jupiter is studied from a polar circle. Researchers hope the mission will shed light on alien planetary systems. Jupiter's stripes and storms can be seen from high in the atmosphere to deep inside the planet. NASA included observing lightning on Jupiter, detecting water in the atmosphere and measuring magnetic fields 10 times stronger than any other planet in its overview of the biggest hits of Juno.
The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) and the NASA's Europa Clipper will both study Jupiter's moons in the next few years.
According to researchers, the gas giant will be a proving ground for the space telescope. During the first year of scientific observations, scientists want to explore Jupiter. Scientists are excited about the chance to understand some of Jupiter's greatest mysteries, such as how the Great Red Spot forms in the turbulent atmosphere or how the largest moons may harbor oceans of water.
The photos of Jupiter were released by the team on July 14th, 2022. Jupiter's thin ring structure and its moons can be seen in some of the images.
The fate of our neighborhood in space has been shaped by Jupiter, the most massive body in the solar system after the sun.
According to a 2005 paper published in the journal Nature, Jupiter's gravity has been found to be the cause of Neptune and Uranus being flung away from the sun. The Nice model was named after the French city where it was developed.
Jupiter and other gas giants were responsible for the Late Heavy Bombardment, a time when the young planet Earth was bombarded with debris.
The vacuum cleaner of the solar system, Jupiter, may help keep asteroids and comets from bombarding Earth. Smaller objects can be sucked in and absorbed by its enormous gravity, as was the case with the 1994 collision of Jupiter and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Some of the objects can still be accelerated by the same gravity, so it's a blessing.
At an altitude where the atmospheric pressure is about 10 times as great as it is on Earth, Jupiter's atmosphere becomes warmer, reaching room temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. If Jupiter has any type of life, it would need to be airborne. There is enough water to support life. There was no proof of life on Jupiter.
There is a hidden ocean on Jupiter's moons, and marine life can be found there.
The PBS NewsHour has an interview with the lead scientist of NASA's Juno mission, who allows anyone to participate in the science around Jupiter. The Nice model and newer theories of Jupiter's history are discussed in an overview article published in 2020 by the journal. In a piece from The Atlantic, writer Marina Koren discovers that Jupiter's Great Red Spot may be more of a pale rosy color. There is an in-depth video on the Jupiter episode of NOVA's "The Planets" series.
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