Jupiter

All About Jupiter

By Madison Nef

Jupiter is known as the giant of the Solar System, and for good reason. It is the largest planet known to date, with a mass more than 300 times that of Earth. Jupiter has a diameter of 88,700 miles and is the fifth planet from the Sun, about 483 million miles away from it. Jupiter is so far away that the Earth is closer to the Sun than it is to Jupiter. Recounting back to Jupiter’s massive size… it’s so large that it could easily fit up to 1,300 Earths inside it and still have room.

Such a regal planet deserves an important name- like all other planets; Jupiter was named after the Roman god Jupiter. What is lesser known is that Jupiter was the sky-god, and in Greek, he would be known as Zeus- figuratively looked upon as the most important Greek god. What’s more; Jupiter is the stormiest planet in the Solar System.  There is a permanent, but ever-changing whirlpool of storms, known as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot which can only be seen when using a telescope. This Red Spot was first seen by Robert Hooke in 1664. However, the reason I find it interesting is because once again, it ties in with the name Zeus- Zeus is often depicted controlling lightning bolts and storms in mythology.

 Jupiter, being so large, can be seen relatively clearly without a telescope. Thus, it was known to many of the ancient civilizations. However, it was not until the invention of the telescope that something quite remarkable was discovered- Jupiter’s moons. The first 4 to be discovered were the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. They were so-named the Galilean moons due to the fact that Galileo was the first to observe them through the telescope and discover them in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s. Since then, 64 lesser moons have been discovered- making Jupiter the planet with the most moons known.

Jupiter is also a gas giant, and was the first to be discovered and is typically known as the first gas giant alongside Neptune, Uranus and Saturn. The gas giants earn their name not only due to their size (being the 4 largest known planets) but also because they are thought to be made up entirely of thick layers of many gasses. Jupiter itself is composed of hydrogen, helium, methane and ammonia. This causes the planet to have very thick mists that change and also bright belts on the outer layers that change.

The cause of all the change in appearance on Jupiter is mainly due to the fact that it has quite odd weather patterns. Allow me to explain:

All planets in the Solar system orbit round the Sun.  The Earth takes just over 365 days, so the Earth’s year is 365 days. However, it takes Jupiter 11.9 of the Earth’s years to make its orbit round the Sun. Although Jupiter’s orbit; and therefore its year; is so dramatically longer than Earth’s, its day is far shorter (much like Saturn). The Earth, spinning on its own axis, takes 24 hours to make a full rotation around the Sun (hence giving us day and night). Jupiter, on the other hand, spins a LOT faster and turns on its axis once every 9.84 hours.

This high level of spinning causes very strong, dramatic weather patterns in the clouds that surround the planet. Because of these ever-changing clouds, the appearance of the planet is altered quite often.

 There is still SO much to be learned about Jupiter… it’s so vast that we may never know everything about it. On August 5^th of 2011, NASA launched the Juno unmanned spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter in an attempt to learn more about this strange planet. This spacecraft will take 5 years to actually reach the planet; and is the first spacecraft to be entirely solar powered.

·        Fun fact! Juno was a Roman goddess… best known to be the wife of Jupiter. Perhaps astronomers thought that by naming the spacecraft this, it would bring them more luck. Who knows.

Well, there you have it! I hope you enjoyed this paper and learned a bit about Jupiter. Who would have known that such a large planet could have SO MANY moons?! I think that that’s the fact that I most enjoyed learning about Jupiter. In fact, I have written a long paper that goes into detail on each of Jupiter’s moons. If you want to check that out, you can scroll down farther and you should be able to find it. Fascinating stuff!

Anyway, I have to go now. Thank you for reading.

Maddie