Some Cool Facts About Jupiter

1. The planet Jupiter is the fifth planet out from the Sun, and is two and a half times more massive than all the other planets in the solar system combined. It is made primarily of gases and is therefore known as a “gas giant”.
2.  It is the largest and the most massive planet in the solar system. Jupiter is one of the four gas giants, the other being Uranus, Saturn and Neptune. Jupiter is remarkably colorful with white and dark bands of clouds.
3. The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the total mass of all the other planets in our Solar System. If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 264 pounds on Jupiter. Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth’s and a diameter that is 11 times larger.
4. Jupiter has the shortest day of all the planets. It turns on its axis once every 9 hours and 55 minutes. The rapid rotation flattens the planet slightly, giving it an oblate shape.
5. Jupiter orbits the Sun once every 11.8 Earth years. From our point of view on Earth, it appears to move slowly in the sky, taking months to move from one constellation to another.
6. The Great Red Spot is a huge storm on Jupiter. It has raged for at least 350 years. It is so large that three Earths could fit inside it.
7. Jupiter’s interior is made of rock, metal, and hydrogen compounds. Below Jupiter’s massive atmosphere (which is made primarily of hydrogen), there are layers of compressed hydrogen gas, liquid metallic hydrogen, and a core of ice, rock, and metals.
8. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system. Jupiter’s moons are sometimes called the Jovian satellites, the largest of these are Ganymede, Calisto Io and Europa. Ganymede measures 5,268 km across, making it larger than the planet Mercury.
9. Jupiter has a thin ring system. Its rings are composed mainly of dust particles ejected from some of Jupiter’s smaller worlds during impacts from incoming comets and asteroids. The ring system begins some 92,000 km above Jupiter’s cloud tops and stretches out to more than 225,000 km from the planet. They are between 2,000 to 12,500 km thick.

Note: Refer to the table given below for more details about Jupiter.