Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its diameter is about 11 times that of Earth, making it 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets combined! Jupiter also has 64 known moons, many of which are named after Greek and Roman mythology. Here are some interesting Jupiter facts about this gas giant:
Saturn Facts
- Jupiter is a massive planet and the largest in our solar system
- Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our solar system
- Jupiter’s red spot is 41,000 km across meaning it is bigger than earth.
- Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is an enormous spinning storm
- Jupiter has a ring system
- Jupiters magnetic field is 14 times stronger than earth’s
- Jupiter takes around 12 earth years to orbit the Sun
- Jupiter has 79 known moons
- Ganymede is Jupiter’s largest moon
- Jupiter is a gas giant consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium
- There have been 7 spacecraft’s visit Jupiter
- Jupiter is big enough to hold more than 1,300 Earth’s inside it
- Jupiter does not experience seasons as we do on earth and other planets
- Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the solar system
Orbit & Rotation
The Orbit & Rotation of Jupitar has many interesting facts and leaves us with many questions. This section will help answer any question that you may have about this planet’s orbit or rotation in our solar system
How Long Does It Take Jupiter to Orbit the Sun
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Being over 300 times bigger than Earth, Jupiter has a lot of influence on how other planets and moons orbit the sun. This gas giant makes one full trip around the sun every 12 years, which is about 4332 days (11.9 Earth years). It takes just under 43 hours for Jupiter to complete one rotation on its axis.
How Far From the Sun Does Jupiter Orbit
Jupiter orbits at an average distance from the sun of 483 million km (300 million miles) and takes 11.86 earth years to complete one orbit around the sun. The diameter of Jupiter is 142,984 km (88,846 miles), which means it would take 14 Earths lined up side by side to cover its expanse!
How Long Does It Take For Jupiter To Rotate
Jupiter is a planet that lies in the Solar System. It orbits around the Sun. It takes 10 hours to complete one rotation, making it the fastest rotating planet of our solar system.
How Long Is a Year on Jupiter
The gas giant, Jupiter, has a year that lasts 12 Earth years. In addition to its long orbital cycle around the Sun, it also rotates on its axis approximately once every 9 hours. The planet’s magnetic field is roughly 20 times stronger than that of Earth’s, and it has the strongest winds in our Solar System. As mentioned above, Jupiter travels about 50 degrees eastward from one zodiac constellation to another during this period taking roughly 12 years to do so.
How Long Is a Day on Jupiter
Jupiter has a day that lasts only 9 hours and 55 minutes. This is because Jupiter rotates at a breakneck speed, resulting in the planet appears to move from east to west in just under 10 hours. While this may seem like an impressive feat for such a large planet, it’s actually quite common among gas giants.
Jupiter History
The history of Jupiter is a long and interesting one. This section will help answer any question that you may have about the planet’s past from the naming to the discovery of the planet.
How Old Is Jupiter
Current models of our solar system suggest Jupiter is the oldest planet in our solar system, forming its large solid core prior to solar nebula dissipation roughly 4.5 billion years ago.
How Did Jupiter Get Its Name
Jupiter was named after Zeus’ father, who was king of Mount Olympus in Greek mythology. The Romans later called him Jupiter, their version of Zeus.
Who Discovered Jupiter
Jupiter was observed in ancient times by both Babylonian and Chinese astronomers. However, the first detailed observations of Jupiter were made in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. His discovery of Jupiter’s four largest moons was likely the first observation of moons orbiting a planet other than Earth.
How Many Spacecrafts Have Visited Jupiter
Nine spacecraft have visited Jupiter, starting with the Pioneer 10 mission that arrived in December 1973. The most recent mission, Juno, arrived in Jupiter’s orbit on 4 July 2016 and continues observing the planet to this day.
Atmospheric Structure and Dynamics
The atmospheric structure and dynamics of Jupiter are complex ones. This section will help answer any question that you may have about the composition, temperature, or pressure in this planet’s atmosphere answering all your questions with facts.
What Is Jupiter’s Great Red Spot
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a massive storm located 22 degrees south of the planet’s equator. It is thought to result from a reaction of photo-dissocated ammonia and acetylene, but this is still uncertain.
How Big Is Jupiter’s Red Spot
In 2015, the Great Red Spot was measured to be roughly 16,500 km by 10,940 km, but only two hundred years ago, it was seen to be approximately 41,000 km across. Both measurements indicate it is larger than the Earth.
How Old Is Jupiter Red Spot
No one knows for sure how old the Great Red Spot is, but based on observations, it’s at least 150 years old. The earliest reliable viewings date to 1831, as reported by the Royal Astronomical Society. Giovanni Cassini described a “permanent storm” on Jupiter in 1665, but he was not able to make a detailed enough observation with his available equipment to determine it’s the Great Red Spot we know today.
What Is Jupiter’s Red Spot
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is an enormous spinning storm twice as wide as the Earth. Wind speeds vary from a fairly calm center up to 680 km/h along its edges, more than twice as fast as the strongest hurricane winds on Earth.
When Will Jupiter’s Red Spot Disappear
The storm has grown and shrunk cyclically through past observations, but it’s been a long time since growth was last recorded. Measurements in 2017 indicated the storm was a third the size it was in the early nineteenth century. Glenn Orton of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported to Business Insider in 2018 that it might disappear in the next ten to twenty years.
How Many Earths Can Fit In Jupiter’s Red Spot
One Earth, with a maximum diameter of 12,756 km, can easily fit within the Great Red Spot.
Does Jupiter Have Rings
Though not as visible as those of Saturn or Uranus, Jupiter does have rings. The Jovian ring system was first observed by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1979.
How Many Rings Does Jupiter Have
There are four rings in the Jovian Ring System. From innermost to outermost, they are the: Halo ring, Main ring, Amalthea gossamer ring, and Thebe gossamer ring.
What Are Jupiter Rings Made of
Unlike the rings of Saturn and Uranus, which are composed primarily of ice mixed with other debris, Jupiter’s rings are mainly made of dust.
Does Jupiter Have Moons
Jupiter has 79 known moons, second only to Saturn’s 82 natural satellites for having the most in our solar system. They range in size from less than 10 km across to the massive Ganymede with a 5,262 km diameter, over a third of Earth’s.
How Many Moons Does Jupiter Have
There are 79 natural satellites known to orbit Jupiter. Galileo Galilei discovered the four largest with his telescope in 1610, and they are now known as the Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. 60 of these moons are less than 10 km in diameter.
What Are the Names of Jupiter Moons
Of Jupiter’s 79 moons, the most well-known are the Galilean: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
The Himalia group, thought to have a common origin as a broken-up asteroid, are Leda, Ersa, Pandia, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, and Dia.
The Carme group, also thought to have originated from a common asteroid ancestor, contains the following named satellites: Erinome, Aitne, Herse, Taygete, Eukelade, Carme, Isonoe, Pasithee, Kalyke, Kale, Kallichore, Chaldene, Arche, and Eirene.
Jupiter’s named retrograde moons are Euporie, Eupheme, Helike, Euanthe, Hermippe, Praxidike, Thyone, Thelxinoe, Ananke, Mneme, Orthosie, Harpalyke, Iocaste, Autonoe, Philophrosyne, Cyllene, Pasiphae, Sponde, Eurydome, Hegemone, Kore, Megaclite, Aoede, Callirrhoe, and Sinope.
The remaining, ungrouped name moons, are Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe, Themisto, Carpo, and Valetudo.
Saturn’s Biggest Moon
Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon, is also the largest natural satellite in our solar system. With a diameter of 5,262 km, it is larger than the planet Mercury.
How Much Gravity Is on Jupiter
Jupiter’s gravity, 24.79 m/s2, is massive. It cleared the Kirkland gaps in the asteroid belt, controls numerous asteroids in its orbit around the Sun, and alters the trajectory of comets that enter our solar system. It may even have been responsible for the Late Heavy Bombardment that occurred roughly 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago.
Is There Water On Jupiter
It was recently discovered that Jupiter has much more water than previously thought. NASA’s Juno spacecraft sent back data indicating 0.25% of Jupiter’s atmosphere consists of water molecules.
How Big Is Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It is 318 times more massive than the Earth and 2.5 times more massive than all the other planets in the solar system combined.
What Is the Diameter of Jupiter
Jupiter has an average diameter of 139,822 km, nearly eleven times that of Earth.
What Is Jupiter Made of
Jupiter is a gas giant consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium. It is thought to have a dense core surrounded by metallic hydrogen, but theories vary about its composition.
What Is Jupiter Atmosphere Made of
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and is known as a gas giant, due to its composition of hydrogen (90%), helium (9%), and other trace elements.
Does Jupiter Have A Magnetic Field
Jupiter’s magnetic field is 20,000 times stronger than the Earth’s and begins averting the solar wind nearly 3 million kilometers before it reaches the planet.
What Is The Temperature on Jupiter
The temperature on Jupiter varies widely by distance from the core. In the clouds of Jupiter, it’s roughly -145 degrees Celsius, but core temperatures are thought to reach 24,000 degrees Celsius, over three times that on the surface of the Sun.
What Color Is Jupiter
Jupiter is mostly yellow and yellowish-orange, though there are white bands and red storms present, as well.
Can We Live on Jupiter
There is no way for humans to live on Jupiter with our current technology. Being a gas giant, it likely has no solid surface, and its atmosphere is toxic to humans. Its distance from the Sun results in inhospitably frigid temperatures.
Comparing Jupiter and Distances From Other Planets
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and has a lot of interesting facts about it. This section will help answer any question that you may have comparing Jupiter to other planets or distances from them, as well answering questions on how big this gas giant really gets?
How Far Is Jupiter From Earth
Jupiter can be as close as 588 million km or as far away as 968 million km from the Earth.
How Big Is Jupiter Compared to Earth
Jupiter, the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest object in our solar system. While its mass is only two-thirds that of all the other planets combined. Jupiter is big enough to hold more than 1,300 Earths inside it!
How Long Does It Take to Get to Jupiter
Travel times to Jupiter vary greatly based on launch speed and trajectory. The first successful flyby of Jupiter by NASA’s Pioneer 10 took 640 days to arrive after its launch, but the more recent Voyager 1 & 2, was in space 411 days between launch and arrival.
How Big Is Jupiter Compared to the Moon
The Moon and Venus are similar in size. The size of Venus is 69,911km Radius, while the diameter of the Moon is 1,737.1km. In other words, Jupiter is 40 times larger than the Moon.
How Far Is Jupiter From the Moon
Jupiter is approximately 240,000 miles (386,000 km) away from the Moon.
How Far Is Jupiter From the Sun
Due to the planets not being perfectly round the distances are always estimates. Jupiter is approximately 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) away from the Sun.
How Big Is Jupiter Compared To Saturn
Jupiter is significantly different from that of the Sun, Jupiter’s radius is 69,911 km and the Sun has a radius of 696,340 million km. A vast difference in size meaning the Sun is around 10 times bigger than Jupiter.
