Download Jupiter Planet

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. It is approximately 143,000
kilometers (about 89,000 miles) wide at its equator. Jupiter is the most massive planet in our
solar system, more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined, and had it been
about 80 times more massive, it would have actually become a star instead of a planet. Its
atmosphere resembles that of the sun, made up mostly of hydrogen and helium, and with four
large moons and many smaller moons in orbit around it, Jupiter by itself forms a kind of
miniature solar system. All told, the immense volume of Jupiter could hold more than 1,300
Earths.
Jupiter is like a star in composition. If Jupiter had been about 80 times more
massive, it would have become a star rather than a planet.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. Jupiter's average distance from the sun is
5.2 astronomical units, or AU. This distance is a little more than five times the distance from
Earth to the sun. When viewed from Earth, it is usually the second brightest planet in the sky,
after Venus. The planet is named after Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods.
The colorful bands of Jupiter are arranged in dark belts and light zones created by
strong east-west winds in the planet's upper atmosphere traveling more than 400 mph
(640 kph). The white clouds in the zones are made of crystals of frozen ammonia, while darker
clouds of other chemicals are found in the belts. At the deepest visible levels are blue clouds.
Far from being static, the stripes of clouds change over time. Inside the atmosphere, diamond
rain may fill the skies.
Jupiter's gargantuan magnetic field is the strongest of all the planets in the solar
system at nearly 20,000 times the strength of Earth's. It traps electrically charged particles in an
intense belt of electrons and other electrically charged particles that regularly blasts the
planet's moons and rings with a level of radiation more than 1,000 times the lethal level for a
human, damaging even heavily shielded spacecraft such as NASA's Galileo probe. The
magnetosphere of Jupiter, which is composed of these fields and particles, swells out some
600,000 to 2 million miles (1 million to 3 million km) toward the sun and tapers to a tail
extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion km) behind Jupiter.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot
The Galileo spacecraft took this photo of Jupiter's Great Red Spot in 1996.
Jupiter is a giant gas planet. Its atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen gas
and helium gas, just like the sun. The planet's surface is covered in thick red, brown, yellow and
white clouds.
One of Jupiter's most famous features is the Great Red Spot. It is a giant spinning
storm, resembling a hurricane. At its widest point, the storm is about three-and-a-half times the
diameter of Earth. Jupiter is a very windy planet. Winds range from 192 mph to more than 400
mph. The Great Red Spot, a giant hurricane-like storm seen for more than 300 years. At its
widest, the Great Red Spot is three times the diameter of the Earth, and its edge spins
counterclockwise around its center at a speed of about 225 mph (360 kph). The color of the
storm, which usually varies from brick red to slightly brown, may come from small amounts of
sulfur and phosphorus in the ammonia crystals in Jupiter's clouds. The spot grows and shrinks
over time, and every now and again, seems to fade entirely.
Jupiter has three thin rings. The rings were discovered in 1979 by NASA's Voyager
1 spacecraft. Jupiter's rings are made up mostly of tiny dust particles.
1. The main ring is flattened. It is about 20 miles (30 km) thick and more
than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) wide.
2. The inner cloud-like ring, called the halo, is roughly 12,000 miles
(20,000 km) thick. The halo extends halfway from the main ring down
to the planet's cloud tops and expands by interaction with Jupiter's
magnetic field. Both the main ring and halo are composed of small,
dark particles.
3. The third ring, known as the gossamer ring because of its transparency,
is actually three rings of microscopic debris from three of Jupiter's
moons, Amalthea, Thebe and Adrastea. It is probably made up of dust
particles less than 10 microns in diameter, about the same size of the
particles found in cigarette smoke, and extends to an outer edge of
about 80,000 miles (129,000 km) from the center of the planet and
inward to about 18,600 miles (30,000 km).
Orbit & rotation:-
Average distance from the sun: 483,682,810 miles (778,412,020 km). By comparison: 5.203
times that of Earth
Perihelion (closest approach to the sun): 460,276,100 miles (740,742,600 km). By comparison:
5.036 times that of Earth
Aphelion (farthest distance from the sun): 507,089,500 miles (816,081,400 km). By
comparison: 5.366 times that of Earth
Jupiter rotates, or spins, faster than any other planet. One rotation equals one
day. Jupiter's day is only about 10 hours long. Jupiter's orbit is elliptical, or oval-shaped. It takes
12 Earth years for Jupiter to make one revolution around the sun, so a year on Jupiter is equal
to 12 years on Earth.
The temperature in the clouds of Jupiter is about minus 145 degrees Celsius
(minus 234 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature near the planet's center is much, much
hotter. The core temperature may be about 24,000 degrees Celsius (43,000 degrees
Fahrenheit). That's hotter than the surface of the sun! If a person could stand on the clouds at
the top of Jupiter's atmosphere, the force of gravity he or she would feel would be about 2.4
times the force of gravity on the surface of Earth. A person who weighs 100 pounds on Earth
would weigh about 240 pounds on Jupiter.
Jupiter has an extremely powerful magnetic field, like a giant magnet. Deep under
Jupiter's clouds is a huge ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen. As Jupiter spins, the swirling liquid
metal ocean creates the strongest magnetic field in the solar system. At the tops of the clouds
(tens of thousands of kilometers above where the field is created), Jupiter's magnetic field is 20
times stronger than the magnetic field on Earth.
How Many Moons Does Jupiter Have?
Jupiter has 62 known moons. The most recent moons were discovered in 2003.
The planet's four largest moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These four moons are
called the Galilean satellites. Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered these moons in 1610.
1. Ganymede
The largest of Jupiter's moons is Ganymede. It is the largest moon in the solar
system. Ganymede is larger than the planet Mercury and three-fourths the size of Mars.
Ganymede is the only moon in the solar system known to have its own magnetic field.
Ganymede and Callisto have many craters and appear to be made of ice and rocky material.
2. Lo
Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system. The sulfur its
volcanoes spew out gives Io a blotted yellow-orange appearance that is often compared to a
pepperoni pizza. As Io orbits Jupiter, the planet's immense gravity causes 'tides' in Io's solid
surface that rise 300 feet (100 meters) high, generating enough heat for volcanic activity.
3. Europa
The frozen crust of Europa is made up mostly of water ice, and it may hide a
liquid ocean holding twice as much water as Earth does. It has a tenuous atmosphere
composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is striated by cracks and streaks, whereas craters are
relatively rare. Being composed of frozen water, it gives the moon the smoothest surface of any
solid object in the Solar System. The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface have led to
the hypothesis that a water ocean exists beneath it, which could conceivably serve as an abode
for extraterrestrial life. This hypothesis proposes that heat from tidal flexing causes the ocean
to remain liquid and drives geological activity similar to plate tectonics Some of this liquid
spouts from the surface in newly spotted sporadic plumes at the southern pole. Its potential to
host life caused NASA to request funding for a mission to explore Europa.
4. Callisto
Callisto has the lowest reflectivity, or albedo, of the four Galilean moons. The
surface of Callisto is the oldest and most heavily cratered in the whole solar system. It does not
show any signatures of subsurface processes such as plate tectonics or volcanism, with no signs
that geological activity in general has ever occurred, and is thought to have evolved
predominantly under the influence of impacts. Prominent surface features include multi-ring
structures, variously shaped impact craters, and chains of craters (catenae) and associated
scarps, ridges and deposits. This suggests that its surface may be composed of dark, colorless
rock.
History of Jupiter Planet
Jupiter is formed by material left after the creation of Sun. It has changed its
orbit since it has born. It is the largest as well as the oldest planet in the solar system. It had all
those elements a Sun has and it could be a Sun which would have been revolving our Sun. But it
is too small for the nuclear reactions in its core.
Jupiter is shrinking due to its gravity and is about one-third of its size during its
birth. But if it shrinks for more than 1000 years , then too it will be the largest of all planets. It is
like a boon for our earth, its gravity throws out most of the asteroids away from earth. The
weather on Jupiter is stormy. It has many storms which are bigger than earth and giant red spot
is biggest of all lasting from 300 years.
Jupiter is perfect in its size, if it had been more bigger it would have thrown
earth towards the Sun. if it had been smaller, our earth would have to suffer the asteroid
strikes.
Jupiter's gravitational impact on the solar system
As the most massive body in the solar system after the sun, the pull of Jupiter's
gravity has helped shape the fate of our system. It may have violently hurled Neptune and
Uranus outward, according to calculations published in the journal Nature. Jupiter, along with
Saturn, may have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system's
history, according to an article in Science magazine. It may even nowadays help keep asteroids
from bombarding Earth, and recent events certainly have shown that it can absorb potentially
deadly impacts.
Along with the Sun, the gravitational influence of Jupiter has helped shape the
Solar System. The orbits of most of the system's planets lie closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than
the Sun's equatorial plane (Mercury is the only planet that is closer to the Sun's equator in
orbital tilt), the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt are mostly caused by Jupiter, and the planet
may have been responsible for the Late Heavy Bombardment of the inner Solar System's
history.
Currently, Jupiter's gravitational field influences numerous asteroids that have
clustered into the regions preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are
known as the Trojan asteroids, after three large asteroids there, Agamemnon, Achilles and
Hector, names drawn from the Iliad, Homer's epic about the Trojan War.
How Has NASA Explored Jupiter?
Astronomers have used telescopes on Earth to study Jupiter. Galileo Galilei
was the first astronomer to observe Jupiter with a telescope, which he used to discover four of
its moons. Astronomers also have used telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope that orbit
Earth. NASA has sent eight spacecraft to Jupiter: Pioneer 10, Pioneer-Saturn, Voyager 1,
Voyager 2, Ulysses, Galileo, Cassini and New Horizons. (The Ulysses, Cassini and New Horizons
missions flew by Jupiter on their way to planets and locations farther in the solar system.)
These missions studied Jupiter's atmosphere, surface, moons and rings. The missions also took
close-up images of the planet's unique features. The first mission to Jupiter was Pioneer 10,
launched in 1972.
NASA's Juno mission will study how Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar
system, formed and became the dynamic world it is today.
A new spacecraft named Juno is on its way to Jupiter. NASA's Juno spacecraft
launched in August of 2011 and will arrive at Jupiter in 2016. The goal of Juno is to help
scientists better understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter and how planets form.
Juno will orbit closer to Jupiter than any previous spacecraft. It will use
Jupiter's magnetic field, gravity field and naturally occurring radio waves to study the
mysterious interior of the giant planet. Juno also will take the first pictures of Jupiter's polar
regions and study the huge aurora that lights up Jupiter's north and south poles.
Words to Know:
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Astronomical unit (AU): the average distance from the sun to Earth - about 149 million
kilometers (93 million miles). Earth is 1 AU from the sun.
Magnetic field: the area around a planet that has a magnetic force
Satellite: a natural moon or man-made object that orbits a planet or other object
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Evolution: a process of change in a certain direction
Aurora: a natural display of light in the sky