The Marvel of Jupiter
As the fifth and largest planet in our solar system, this gas giant is a sight to behold with a lot to leave you baffled. Jupiter has so much going on in and around it and in scales so hard to comprehend that it's earned its title as King of the Planets.
Let’s put things to perspective.
Our Earth is massive. A remarkable and humbling 7917.5 miles wide. Picture the Earth’s size relative to that of your country or even just your continent. Now envision that all our seven continents combined are just a mere 29% of the total vastness of Earth. The rest, 71%, is filled with water bodies so expansive that we’re yet to explore 80% of them both in breadth and depth. Earth is enormous, right?
Debatable!
Here’s why. If you lined up 11 of those enormous Earths across, that would be the extent of Jupiter's width. It has two times the mass of all the planets in the solar system combined, which is equivalent to 318 Earth masses. Next to it, our world is a dwarf.
Jupiter is the largest and oldest planet in our solar system. It is a gas giant with no solid surface but composed mainly of a whirlwind of gases rotating at incredible speeds.
It’s gaseous composition comprises of Hydrogen (75%), Helium (24%) and traces of Ammonia, Methane & Water (1%). The gases go round the planet in columns that vary in color depending on their respective chemical composition.
Despite its massive size, Jupiter’s spin around its axis is the fastest in the entire solar system. It takes just under 10 hours to make a complete rotation while Earth takes about 24 hours. Additionally, Jupiter takes about 12 Earth years to complete one orbit around the sun. A year in Jupiter is thus equivalent to 12 Earth years while a day takes just 10 hours.
Jupiter’s Moons.
You know how Earth has just one beautiful moon that’s tidally locked to us? Well, Jupiter has a staggering 79 known moons rotating around it. In fact, it has the most number of moons in the solar system. The four most popular moons of Jupiter are:
i) Io
Other than being one of the largest moons of Jupiter, Io is also the most volcanically active body in the solar system.
ii) Ganymede
This is the largest moon in the entire solar system and is even bigger than the closest planet to the sun, Mercury.
iii) Callisto
Callisto is the second largest moon of Jupiter and the third largest in the solar system. When observed from Earth with a telescope, Callisto is way brighter than our moon. This is because the ice on its surface enables it to reflect more light from the sun.
iv) Europa
Europa is the smallest of the four moons and is said to have the smoothest surface of all solid objects in the solar system.
Collectively, these four moons are known as The Galilean Satellites as they were discovered by Galileo Galilei back in 1610. Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa are also believed to contain oceans of liquid water underneath their crust, a quality that makes them likely to support extraterrestrial life.
The main reason Jupiter is able to hold together its numerous moons is due to its size and its strong gravitation pull.
Jupiter’s gravitational pull.
Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Jupiter has the strongest gravitational pull in the solar system. If you were in Jupiter, you would weigh two and a half times more than you weigh on Earth.
Jupiter’s great gravitational pull is largely beneficial to Earth and other surrounding planets as it’s able to shield them from the wrath of Comets and Asteroids from the sun by redirecting them towards its own surface.
These prevents them from crushing on Earth’s and surrounding planets' surfaces. Thank you Jupiter!
The Great Red Spot.
Another addition to Jupiter’s greatness parade is its iconic Great Red Spot.
This is a raging storm appearing as just a red spot on Jupiter’s surface that has been raging for over 300 years. The storm is about the size of two Earths and the winds here swirl at incredible speeds of up to 400 miles per hour, which is about 2.5 times the speed of a category 5 hurricane. It still rages on violently to date.
Like many objects in space, much is yet to be discovered of this space giant but from the little we’ve been able to scratch off its gaseous surface, it indeed is no ordinary planet but a leader in more ways than one.
