JUPITER - King Of PLANETS .....A Complete Explanation

THE KING OF PLANETS - JUPITER
Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, is a gas giant made up mainly of hydrogen. It is huge. If all the planets in the solar system were combined, Jupiter would still weigh more than twice as much.

A PERFECT STORM
The Great Red Spot is a permanent hurricane that, in size, is twice the diameter of earth. Observed since 1666, its swirling mass takes about a week to turn anti-clockwise.

In a spin
Despite its size, Jupiter spins faster than any other planet. In fact, one rotation takes just under 10 hours. It spins so fast that it bulges slightly at the equator, and its clouds are pulled into thick bands.

Structure and Surface

Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system.
Jupiter is a gas giant. It is made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
Jupiter has a very thick atmosphere.
Jupiter has rings, but they’re very hard to see.

Time on Jupiter

One day on Jupiter goes by in just 10 hours.
One year on Jupiter is the same as 11.8 Earth years.

Jupiter's Neighbors

Jupiter has 79 confirmed moons.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun. That means Mars and Saturn are Jupiter’s neighboring planets.

Quick History

Jupiter has been known since ancient times because it can be seen without advanced telescopes.

Jupiter has been visited or passed by several spacecraft, orbiters and probes, such as Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini, New Horizons, and Juno.

Jupiter is the counterpart to the mythical Greek king of the gods, Zeus, this name is retained even now in the modern Greek language. The ancient Greeks used to call Jupiter, Phaethon, which means “blazing star.” As supreme god of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter was the god of thunder, lightning, and storms, and appropriately called the god of light and sky.
Formation
Throughout the universe, there are many planetary systems similar to ours. Most of them contain terrestrial planets like our own and gas giants like Jupiter. However, they also contain super-Earths – planets that are several times more massive than Earth.
This indicates that our own Solar System should also have these types of planets and it is hypothesized that we did have them but they collided with Jupiter in the early formation of the Solar System. This resulted in Jupiter’s migration from the inner solar system to the outer solar system and thus allowed the inner solar planets to form. This theory is called the Grand Tack Hypothesis.
There are theories that hypothesize the fact that Jupiter may have formed before the Sun while others state that Jupiter formed after the sun about 4.5 billion years ago. Gravity pulled swirling gas and dust and resulted in the creation of Jupiter. Sometime around 4 billion years ago Jupiter settled in its current position in the outer solar system.

Jupiter distance from the Sun and orbital eccentricity

Earth - Jupiter Comparison	Earth	Jupiter
Diameter:	12,742 km	139,822 km
Mass:	5.97 × 10^24 kg	1.90 × 10^27 kg
Moons:	1	79
Distance from Sun:	149,598,262 km	778,340,821 km
Length of Year:	365.24 days	4,333 Earth days
Temperature:	-88 to 58°C	-108°C

Distance, Size and Mass

It is the fifth most distant from the Sun with an average distance of about 5.2 AU. The closest approach is at 4.9 AU and at its farthest 5.4 AU. Its exact position can be checked online since the planet is constantly tracked.
It is the biggest planet of the Solar System, with a mean radius of 43.440 miles / 69.911 km. Almost 11 times bigger than Earth. Jupiter's radius is about 1/10 the radius of the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun, so the densities of the two bodies are similar.
The diameter at the equator of about 88.846 mi / 142.984 km, and at the poles, the diameter is only 83.082 mi / 133.708 km. The average density of Jupiter is about 1.326 g/cm3, much smaller than all the terrestrial planets.
Jupiter is also 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined, having 318 times the mass of Earth. It has a volume of about 1,321 Earths.

Orbit and Rotation

Jupiter rotates once every 10 hours – A Jovian day - thus it has the shortest day of all the planets in the solar system. A Jovian year, on the other hand, is about 12 Earth years, quite long in comparison to its short days. The orbital period is about two-fifths that of Saturn. The orbit of Jupiter is elliptical, inclined about 1.31 degrees when compared to Earth.
The eccentricity of the orbit is about 0.048. This results in its distance from the Sun varying from its perihelion to aphelion by about 75 million km / 46 million km. Jupiter’s upper atmosphere undergoes differential rotation since it’s made out of gases.

Axial tilt

Since Jupiter has a small axial tilt of only 3.13 degrees, it has little seasonal variations Because of this low tilt the poles constantly receive less solar radiation than at the planet’s equatorial region.

Structure

Jupiter does not have a solid surface being comprised mostly out of swirling gases and liquids such as 90% hydrogen, 10% helium – very similar to the sun.
It is now known if Jupiter has a core and recent analysis suggests that the atmosphere extends up to 3.000 km / 1.864 miles down, and beneath this is an ocean of metallic hydrogen going all the way down to the center. About 80-90% of its radius is now believed to be liquid or technically - electrically conducting plasma – it may be similar to liquid mercury. The Juno mission will reveal more about Jupiter’s inner structure and if indeed it has a core.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere of Jupiter is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, spanning over 5.000 km / 3.000 mi in altitude. It is perpetually covered with clouds composed of ammonia crystals and possibly ammonium hydrosulfide.
The clouds are located in the tropopause and are arranged into bands of different latitudes, known as tropical regions sub-divided into lighter-hued zones and darker belts. Because of their interactions, having conflicting circulation patterns, storms and turbulences are created.
Wind speeds of 100 m/s – 360 km/h are common in the zonal jets. The cloud layer is only about 50 km / 31 mi deep, consisting of at least 2 decks of clouds – a thin clearer region and a lower thick one.
The upper atmosphere is calculated to be comprised of about 88-92% hydrogen and 8-12% helium. Since helium atoms have more mass than hydrogen atoms, the composition changes. The atmosphere is thus estimated to be approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium with the remaining 1% of the mass consisting of other elements such as methane, water vapor, ammonia, silicon-based compounds, carbon, ethane, oxygen and more.

Jupiter Moons

Jupiter has 53 named moons. Others are awaiting official names. Combined, scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons.
There are many interesting moons orbiting the planet, but the ones of most scientific interest are the first four moons discovered beyond Earth—the Galilean satellites.

The Galilean Moons

The planet Jupiter's four largest moons are called the Galilean satellites after Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who first observed them in 1610. The German astronomer Simon Marius claimed to have seen the moons around the same time, but he did not publish his observations and so Galileo is given the credit for their discovery. These large moons, named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, are each distinctive worlds.

Io

A NASA spacecraft sees a volcanic explosion on Jupiter’s third-largest moon.

Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Io's surface is covered by sulfur in different colorful forms. As Io travels in its slightly elliptical orbit, Jupiter's immense gravity causes "tides" in the solid surface that rise 300 feet (100 meters) high on Io, generating enough heat for volcanic activity and to drive off any water. Io's volcanoes are driven by hot silicate magma.

Europa

Europa's surface is mostly water ice, and there is evidence that it may be covering an ocean of water or slushy ice beneath. Europa is thought to have twice as much water as does Earth. This moon intrigues astrobiologists because of its potential for having a "habitable zone." Life forms have been found thriving near subterranean volcanoes on Earth and in other extreme locations that may be analogues to what may exist on Europa.

Ganymede

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury), and is the only moon known to have its own internally generated magnetic field. Ganymede was discovered in 1610 by astronomer Galileo Galilei and is named for the mythical Greek son of a King who was carried to the sky by Zeus posing as an eagle.

Callisto

Callisto's surface is extremely heavily cratered and ancient—a visible record of events from the early history of the solar system. However, the very few small craters on Callisto indicate a small degree of current surface activity.

Did You Know?

There are no rockets powerful enough to hurl a spacecraft into the outer solar system and beyond. In 1962, scientists calculated how to use Jupiter's intense gravity to hurl spacecraft into the farthest regions of the solar system. We've been traveling farther and faster ever since.

CONCULSION

A new spacecraft named Juno is now orbiting Jupiter. NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. The goal of Juno is to help scientists better understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter and how planets form.

Juno is using Jupiter’s magnetic field, gravitational field (the force field of gravity around the planet) and naturally occurring radio waves to study the mysterious interior of the giant planet. The spacecraft is taking the first pictures of Jupiter’s polar regions and studying the huge auroras that light up Jupiter’s north and south poles.

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