Download jupiter facts for kids - National Astronomy Week 2014

1st to 8th March 2014 (inc.)
Website: http://astronomyweek.org.uk
JUPITER FACTS FOR KIDS
1. How big is Jupiter?
Jupiter measures 142,984 km (88,846 miles) across. That’s over 11
times wider than the Earth.
To put it another way: if Jupiter were an empty bowl, you could
fit over 1,300 bodies the size of the Earth inside it. No
surprise that Jupiter is known as the Giant Planet.
2. How long does Jupiter take to orbit the Sun?
Jupiter takes 11.86 of our years to orbit the Sun.
3. How far away is Jupiter?
Jupiter is over five times farther from the Sun than we are:
778.4 million km (483.7 million miles) to be exact.
The distance between Jupiter and the Earth changes as the two
planets orbit the Sun. When they are on the same side of the Sun,
they can come as close together as 588.7 million km (365.8
million miles). But when they are on opposite sides of the Sun,
they can be as far apart as 968.2 million km (601.6 million
miles).
During National Astronomy Week 2014, Jupiter will be about 700
million kilometres (435 million miles) away from us.
4. What’s Jupiter made of?
Jupiter is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, the two
lightest gases in nature. But Jupiter is so massive that its
gravitational pull compresses these gases into a liquid about
1,000 km beneath the cloud tops. At the centre of Jupiter there
may be a solid core of rock, but we would never be able to reach
it. The best way to explore Jupiter would be by balloon!
5. How many moons does Jupiter have?
We’re still counting! So far, 67 have been found. The smallest of
these are only about 2 km across. There may be other tiny moons
that we haven’t seen yet.
6. What are the Galilean moons?
The four largest moons of Jupiter are called the Galilean moons
because they were discovered by the Italian scientist Galileo
Galilei about 400 years ago. They are big enough to be seen with
a small telescope or even binoculars, if held steadily. Three of
these – Ganymede, Callisto and Io – are bigger than our own Moon,
and the fourth, Europa, is not much smaller. In fact, Ganymede is
the largest moon in the Solar System. It’s 5,265 km (3,272 miles)
across.
7. Does Jupiter have rings?
Yes, but they are faint. Spacecraft have discovered four bands of
dust around Jupiter, apparently caused by particles knocked off
the surfaces of several of Jupiter’s moons by impacts with
smaller bodies.
8. Could there be life on Jupiter?
Probably not. It has been suggested that some form of life might
float in the clouds, like fish in the sea, but this is highly
unlikely.
However, some of the moons of Jupiter are a different matter.
There might be an ocean of liquid water under the icy crust of
Europa, for example, and some form of life might be found there.
If so, future space probes might find it.
9. How many space probes have been sent to Jupiter?
Six have got there so far, although five of those went straight
past without stopping. The first two probes to reach Jupiter were
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 which flew past in 1973 and 1974. These
were followed by Voyagers 1 and 2, both in 1979. The first probe
to go into orbit around Jupiter was called Galileo, in 1995,
which studied the planet for nearly eight years. In 2000, a probe
called Cassini flew past Jupiter on its way to the next planet,
Saturn. Another probe, New Horizons, flew past in 2007 on its way
to Pluto.
In 2011 NASA launched a probe called Juno which is due to go into
orbit around Jupiter in 2016. The European Space Agency plans to
launch a probe called JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer) in 2022
to study Jupiter’s moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.
10. What can I see on Jupiter?
Clouds – and that’s all. The clouds are drawn out into horizontal
bands by the planet’s rapid rotation. Jupiter spins once in less
than 10 hours, which is the fastest rotation of any planet in the
Solar System. The only long-lasting feature in the clouds is an
oval called the Great Red Spot, which is a spinning storm cloud
larger than the Earth.