Jupiter:
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. With a diameter of 88,846 miles (about 11 planet Earth's end to end) it is well over 10,000 miles greater in diameter than the next largest planet, Saturn. Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium, containing small amounts of water particles, rock, and other elements. This means that, unlike the first four planets, Jupiter is known as a Gas Giant planet; meaning that the vast majority of its mass is gas. Most exoplanets (planets outside our solar system) that have been discovered have been gas giants, mainly because of their vast size. Jupiter is so massive that it contains 2.5 time more mass than all of the rest of the planets in our solar system combined.
(Please note that mass is not the same as volume. While Jupiter is only 10,000 miles greater in diameter than Saturn, it contains an incredibly larger amount of mass).
Earth, Jupiter, and the Sun. It would take 11 Earths to span Jupiter's diameter and about 10 Jupiters to span the Sun's diameter.
This amazing amount of mass generates an incredible amount of heat inside of the planet, about 64,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the center of the planet. This incredible mass and resulting heat cause the gases Jupiter is comprised of to behave in very strange ways.
A cutaway image of the inner latyers of Jupiter.
As you can see from the picture above, Jupiter has an out layer of normal hydrogen and helium. This outer layer extends about 3000 miles into the planet. Below Jupiter's initial layers of gases (comparable to Earth's atmosphere), the amount of pressure that is built up causes the hydrogen to become liquid metallic hydrogen (while normally a gas, under immense heat and pressure, hydrogen apparently begins acting like an alkali metal, craziness). This layer of liquid metallic hydrogen extends all the way to where scientists believe a core is, although they have no idea as to its exact composition or even if a core exists at all. This is because it is currently impossible to chemically measure the center of Jupiter. However, scientists are able to measure the gravity necessary to form a core, so most scientists are of the opinion that one does exists. If it does, scientists are pretty sure that it is a rocky core, about 10-15 times as massive as the Earth. While this sounds very large, it doesn't even make up .1% of Jupiter's total mass.
This immense temperature and pressure at work within Jupiter powers two very excellent phenomena (Apart from the already difficult to comprehend liquid metallic hydrogen). The first is Jupiter's dynamic surface. One glance at the surface of Jupiter will show you a surface pockmarked by catastrophic storms and extremely fast winds.
This image was taken by Voyager 1 (1977) as it flew by.
This image shows some of the most dynamic features of the surface, the Great Red Spot (a storm about 3 times the size of the Earth), The Great White spots (now the small Great Red spot), and the sheer number of jet streams that are present. The entire surface of Jupiter is just like the image above; winds blowing at incredible speeds of 300 miles per hour and 700 miles per hour within storms are the norm. These winds are able to get to these awesome speeds not simply because of the heat generated by the inner workings of the planet, but because unlike on the Earth, there is no solid mass to slow the wind down.
The second awesome thing driven by the internal heat and pressure of the planet is its magnetosphere. If you have read my previous posts, you would know that the Earth also has a magnetosphere, generated by the internal heat of the core, that protects it from the Solar winds. Jupiter's magnetosphere is similar to Earth's but far more impressive. It is so powerful that in the direction of the Sun, it extends about 4.5 million miles, fighting against the solar winds. In the opposite direction, towards Saturn, it extends nearly to Saturn's orbital path, 403,000,000 miles away (50,600 Earths side by side). Not only that, but if somehow the magnetosphere was visible from Earth, it would be five times the size of the full Moon, despite being 1,700 times further away. Excluding the influence of the Sun, it is the single largest entity in our Solar System. To put that in some kind of perspective, at its widest points, Earth's magnetosphere only extends about 800,000 miles away from the Sun and only 30,000 miles towards the Sun. While it seems like a lot, Jupiter would only need to be 80 times more massive to ignite into a star. While this is a significant amount more mass required, when compared to how many Earths it would take (billions), 80 seems quite impressive.
Jupiter has been observed by Humans for thousands of years, as it is one of the most readily visible objects in the night sky. The earliest record of Human knowledge of Jupiter dates back to the 8th century BC in Babylon, although we probably knew about it as soon as we began looking up at the night sky.
This image is one that I took on Sullivan's Island, SC earlier this year (This year has been very excellent for astrological phenomena). The large object is obviously the moon, the body directly to the right of the Moon is the planet Venus, and the smaller and dimmer object on the bottom of the image is Jupiter. This image was taken just a few hours after the Moon was in between these two planets, a very cool time indeed. The significance of this image is the fact that these three bodies are the only immediately visible objects in the night sky. Because I was on an island later at night, there were no significant light sources around to ruin my picture. Even still, the brightest objects in the sky are the three brightest in the sky besides the Sun. Even though it is vastly more distant from us than the Moon and Venus, Jupiter still shines brightly and gloriously in the sky. It was visible to me on that night, as it has been visible to humans for millennia. Jupiter is a truly incredible planet, affecting every single other object within in our Solar System.
Thanks for reading!
My next blog will be on the moons of Jupiter! Stay Tuned! I was originally going to include the moons of Jupiter in this blog, but after much research, I have decided that they really deserve some serious recognition.
