My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets ~ Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Remember? That is how we still recall the sequence of the planets, right?
In this endless universe there are an untold number of mysteries. Some of which we may never know of. But, we know Jupiter! Yes, the fifth planet of our solar system. Let’s explore some basic facts about it.
1. Jupiter is by far the largest planet of our solar system. It is so massively big than Earth that Earth could fit a thousand times in Jupiter. That’s quite a lot!
2. Jupiter well, won’t make it a good place to settle. It is a planet of storms. Most of the storms seem to be never ending and are found throughout the atmosphere. The great red spot also called ‘eye of the Jupiter’ because of it’s shape is a giant storm ranging for around 300 years.
3. Jupiter is considered a gas giant because it does not have a solid surface. Under its atmosphere is a large liquid ocean of hydrogen and water. What lies in between that ocean and the atmosphere? Actually, there is no in between. The atmosphere slowly gets thicker and thicker until it becomes part of the ocean. In other words, Jupiter’s ocean has no surface on which you could float a boat. The sky becomes the ocean.
4.The ancient Babylonians were the first to record their sightings of Jupiter.
This was around the 7thor 8thcentury BC. Jupiter is named after the king of the Roman gods. To the Greeks, it represented Zeus, the god of thunder. The Mesopotamians saw Jupiter as the god Marduk and patron of the city of Babylon. Germanic tribes saw this planet as Donar, or Thor.
5.Jupiter has rings which are very faint and are only seen when it passed in front of the sun. That is because light from sun lights up the rings for us to see them from Earth.
6.Jupiter is not only the largest planet of our solar system but also, it is the fourth brightest and the stormiest planet.
7.The planet revolves so fastly that it gives rise to innumerable storms in it’s atmosphere. The Earth’s orbit rotates to give night and day in 24 hours cycle. But, Jupitar does the same in just 9.84 hours.
8.Since Jupiter is located on a distance more than Earth is, it takes more time to complete a revolution. As much as 12 earth years i.e., one year on Jupiter would mean 12 years on Earth! People on Jupiter would have to wait way too long to celebrate their b’day (if existed!).
9.Eight spacecraft have visited Jupiter.
Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini, Ulysses, and New Horizons missions. The Juno mission is its way to Jupiter and will arrive in July 2016. Other future missions may focus on the Jovian moons Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, and their subsurface oceans.
10.Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field in the solar system and is about 20 times more powerful than Earth’s that to at the top of the clouds which are kilometers away from the place where actually magnetic field is formed. Deep Ocean of mettalic hydrogen, as it spins, creates a swirl of hydrogen and incredibely strong magnetic field.
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