Info
- Surface Area: 61.42 billion km2
- Radius: 69,911 km
- Distance from Sun: 778.5 million km
- Gravity: 24.79 m/s2
- Mass: 1.898 × 10^27 kg (317.8 M⊕)
- Moons: Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, Amalthea, Himalia, MORE
- Surface Preasure: 200 _ 600 kpa
SciTechDaily
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the
largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half
times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less
than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third-brightest natural object
in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus. It has been observed since pre-historic
times and is named after the Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods, because of its
observed size.Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium comprises one quarter
of its mass and one tenth of its volume. It likely has a rocky core of heavier elements,[17]
but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. The on-going
contraction of its interior generates heat greater than the amount received from the Sun.
Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape is that of an oblate spheroid; it has a
slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated
into several bands at different latitudes, with turbulence and storms along their interacting
boundaries. A prominent result of this is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have
existed since at least the 17th century, when it was first seen by telescope.
times and is named after the Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods, because of its
observed size.Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium comprises one quarter
of its mass and one tenth of its volume. It likely has a rocky core of heavier elements,[17]
but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. The on-going
contraction of its interior generates heat greater than the amount received from the Sun.
Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape is that of an oblate spheroid; it has a
slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated
into several bands at different latitudes, with turbulence and storms along their interacting
boundaries. A prominent result of this is the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have
existed since at least the 17th century, when it was first seen by telescope.
Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, making its closest
approach to the planet in December 1973.[19] Jupiter has since been explored
on a number of occasions by robotic spacecraft, beginning with the Pioneer
and Voyager flyby missions from 1973 to 1979, and later by the Galileo orbiter,
which arrived at Jupiter in 1995.
Orbit and rotation
Jupiter is the only planet whose barycentre with the Sun lies outside the volume of
the Sun, though by only 7% of the Sun's radius.[106] The average distance between
Jupiter and the Sun is 778 million km (about 5.2 times the average distance between
Earth and the Sun, or 5.2 AU) and it completes an orbit every 11.86 years. This is
approximately two-fifths the orbital period of Saturn, forming a near orbital resonance.
The orbital plane of Jupiter is inclined 1.31° compared to Earth. Because the eccentricity
of its orbit is 0.048, Jupiter is slightly over 75 million km nearer the Sun at perihelion
than aphelion.[
Jupiter's rotation is the fastest of all the Solar System's planets, completing a
rotation on its axis in slightly less than ten hours; this creates an equatorial
bulge easily seen through an amateur telescope. The planet is an oblate spheroid,
meaning that the diameter across its equator is longer than the diameter measured
between its poles. On Jupiter, the equatorial diameter is 9,275 km (5,763 mi) longer
than the polar diameter
Because Jupiter is not a solid body, its upper atmosphere undergoes differential rotation.
The rotation of Jupiter's polar atmosphere is about 5 minutes longer than that of the
equatorial atmosphere; three systems are used as frames of reference, particularly when
graphing the motion of atmospheric features. System I applies to latitudes from 10° N to 10° S;
its period is the planet's shortest, at 9h 50m 30.0s. System II applies at all latitudes north
and south of these; its period is 9h 55m 40.6s. System III was defined by radio astronomers and
corresponds to the rotation of the planet's magnetosphere; its period is Jupiter's official
rotation