200 Weird Facts About Jupiter

200 Interesting Facts About Jupiter

Jupiter is just over 11 times wider than Earth.
The gas planet has a radius of 43,440.7 miles or 71,492 km.
Its magnetic field is 20 times more powerful than Earth’s.
One of Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede, is bigger than the planet Mercury.
The names of Jupiter’s four largest moons were derived from the lovers of the god Zeus.
In 1979, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered Jupiter’s ring system.
Jupiter’s orbit takes 11.86 Earth years to complete. That equals roughly 4333 Earth days.
Jupiter’s orbit, in Jovian solar days, is approximately 10,476 days long.
One year on Jupiter is equal to 12 years on Earth.
Jupiter is named after Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods in mythology.
An astronaut weighing 100 pounds on earth would weigh 240 pounds on Jupiter.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is 16 to 54 times as powerful as that of the earth.
The equatorial diameter of Jupiter is roughly 142,984 km. To give you some perspective about how huge this planet is, if you replaced the full moon with Jupiter, Jupiter would be 41 times wider in the sky than the moon. Or 20.5° of the night sky would be filled by the Giant planet.
Jupitar has a circumference of 439,264 km! That more the distance from Earth to the Moon. If you were traveling at normal commercial airline cruising speeds of 900 km/h, it would take you 488 hours, or nearly 3 weeks, of continuous non-stop flying to circumnavigate the planet.
Jupiter’s volume is 1.4313×1015 km3. That’s a massive number which fully written out looks something like this: 1,431,300,000,000,000. Which is 1.4 quadrillion km3.
Jupiters volume is so massive, you could easily fit all the other planets in the solar system, plus all the comets and asteroids, inside Jupitar comfortably.
The axial tilt of Jupiter is only 3.13°. This is small compared to earth tilt which is 23.5°. In fact, jupiters tilt is so small, the planet experances no tilt related seasons.
Jupitar get Aurorae at the north and south poles, just like Earth does.
Jupiter’s rotation is the fastest of all the planets in the solar system.
In 2000, some of the highest resolution pictures of Jupiter were taken when the Cassini probe flew by Jupiter on its way to Saturn.
Pioneer 11 came within 34,000 km of Jupiter’s surface during it flyby mission.
Jupitar’s planetary ring systems streches out to 226,000 km from the planets center.
Jupitar’s rings are incredibly faint and have not been closly studied.
In july 1994, Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 broke apart and collided with Jupiter. The resulting impacts created multiple short-lived dark scars on jupitars surface that were each the diameter of Earth in size.
The Wesley impact, was an impact on Jupiter that caused a black scar in the planet’s atmosphere in July 2009.
The length of each season on Jupiter is roughly three years.
Jupiter has an average temperature of minus 145 degree Celsius. However, it is a notable fact here that the temperature of Jupiter changes not due to the change in its distance from the Sun but due to the change in its height above its surface, meaning that the regions near the core of the planet are hotter than those away from it.
Jupiter emits more heat that it receives from the Sun, almost four times of its intake.
The temperature on Jupiter ranges between minus 128 degree Celsius and minus 13 degree Celsius.
Jupiter has the largest ocean in the Solar System, an ocean made up of liquid hydrogen instead of water.
A spacecraft couldn’t potentially land on Jupiter because of lack of a solid surface. The planet is built mostly from gasses and liquids that are swirling around.
Europa — one of Jupiter’s moons — is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system.
Jupitar has a whopping 79 known moons. For comparison, Saturn who has the next highest number of moons, has 17 fewer moons than Jupiter at 62 known moons.
Jupiter has been a subject for several robotic spacecraft explorations since the 1970s.
In February 2007, the New Horizons probe approached the giant gas planet and used its gravity to increase its speed, and bend its trajectory into the path of Pluto.
The altitude of Jupiter’s planetary atmosphere stretches to over 5,000 km.
Since Jupiter has no surface, the base of its atmosphere is usually considered to be the point at which atmospheric pressure is equal to 100 kPa or 1.0 bar.
Astronomers have called Jupiter a failed star because, like the sun and other stars, Jupiter is rich in hydrogen and helium. However, it doesn’t have enough mass to trigger fusion reactions in its core.
Lightning on Jupiter, caused by water droplets i nthe atmosphere, can release around 1000 times the amount of energy compared to the lightning on earth.
The traditional orange and brown color of Jupiter’s clouds are caused by upwelling compounds changing color when they are exposed to ultraviolet light from the Sun.
The Great Red Spot is located 22° south of Jupiter’s equator.
The Great Red Spot rotates in a counterclockwise direction. It takes six days to make a full rotation.
Other than the Great Red Spot, Jupiter has other lesser storms called white ovals and brown ovals.
There is a Great Cold Spot located at Jupiter’s north pole. It was discovered in April 2017, and it’s 24,000 km across.
As Jupiter spins at a high speed, and because of the lack of solid mass in the planet’s composition, Jupiter has flattened out at the poles and has bulged at the equator.
Jupiter is the biggest source of radio emissions in the sky. Its radio waves are even received on Earth but are mostly below the audible level for humans.
Ice vs Gas: Uranus and Neptune are ice giants while Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants.
Jupiter can easily put to fire anything that comes in its contact. Thus, the spacecraft sent to study the planet are always at a risk of burning down when they have to come close to the planet for making the required observations.
Jupiter is 318 times heavier than earth.
Jupiter’s mass is one-thousandth that of Sun’s mass and equal to two and a half times the mass of all other planets combined.
Jupiter’s rings are made up of small, dark particles and are difficult to see except when backlit by the Sun. Jupiter is known to have 4 sets of rings: the Halo Ring, the Main Ring, the Amalthea Gossamer Ring, and the Thebe Gossamer Ring.
Jupiter took shape around 4.6 billion years ago, the same time as the solar system began to form. The planets were gradually built up by accretion of dust, which revolved around a young sun.
Jupiter has a large, complex, and intense magnetic field that is thought to arise from electrical currents in the rapidly spinning metallic hydrogen interior.
Jupiter has been called the solar system’s vacuum cleaner due to its immense gravity well that pulls in rogue comets and asteroids.
Because of its location in the inner solar system, and immense size, Jupiter receives more comet impacts in comparison to the other planets in the solar system.
Jupiter’s ring system has three main components that were spotted for the first time in 1976 by Voyager. They are named: Halo (a thick inner ring), Main (a wide and flat ring) and Gossamer rings (a pair of faint outer rings).
Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field in the solar system, except that of the Sun.
It also has an ocean of liquid Hydrogen, which is responsible for almost all the power that this giant planet has. Due to the high speed with which the planet spins, the liquid inside the planet attracts everything that comes in its vicinity and produces a strong magnetic field.
Jupiter is also accredited with having the largest moon in the solar system – Ganymede (diameter – 5262 kilometers). This was also discovered by Galileo, and this moon is even bigger than the planet Mercury
The Great Red Spot measures around 24,000 km in diameter, and 14,000 km in height which is far bigger than the total size of the Earth which is 12,742 km. The spot has constantly been around since Cassini first discovered it.
The Great Red Spot is shrinking. Over a century ago the spot was over 40,000 km Wide. Now it’s nearly only half that.
In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons: Ganymede, Europa, Io, and Callisto.
The moons of Jupiter, Ganymede, Europa, Io, and Callisto, were the first objects found orbiting another planet.
At the time of writing, the next planned mission to the Jovian system is set to launch in 2022.
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) will be the first mission to Jupiter that explicitly explores the Jovian moons.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, in 2023, will be sent to Jupiter’s moon Europa to determine if it harbors life.
Jupiter mainly consists of Hydrogen, Helium and other liquid matter.
Jupiter, like other most planets, is not a well defined solid object. It mainly consists of gaseous matter.
Jupiter is famous for its Great Red Spot, which is a giant spot observed first in the 17th century. The giant Red Spot is a dust storm that is so immense that it gets larger than the size of Earth.
Four of the Jupiter’s moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. These are the largest of all the moons that Jupiter has and are called the Galilean satellites.
Jupiter has been studied by at least 8 space crafts that have been sent to space for the mission. They were sent by NASA between 1979 and 2007. They are Pioneer 10, Pioneer-Saturn, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Ulysses, Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons.
Jupitar’s moon Europa is considered to be one of most promissing sites for alient micobial life because it has subterrainian ociean.
When viewed through Earth-based telescopes Jupiter always appears fully illuminated. It never has a cressent appearence like a half moon.
Jupitar was called the “wood star” by the Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans and Japanese.
The observation of Jupiter dates back to the 7th or 8th century BC when Babylonian astronomers would study the planet with the naked eye.
The four largest moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, are known as the Galilean moons.
All 4 of the Galilean Moons, Io, Europe, Ganymede, and Callisto, are found inside, and are protected by, Jupiters Magnet field.
During the 1660s, Giovanni Cassini used a new type of telescope to discover the colorful bands, spots, and storms on Jupiter
In 1892, E. E. Barnard discovered 5th mood of Jupitar and called it Amalthea.
On December 7, 1995, the Galileo probe became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter
Jupitars normal Magnet field is a bubble that extends 5.25 million km from Jupitars center. But there is a tail facing directly away from the sun, that streches millions of kilometer more as far back as Saturn’s orbit.
The 2010 Jupiter impact event was a small object, estimated to be 8-13 meter in diameter, impact event on Jupiter.
Jupiter’s atmosphere is considered to be about 5,000 km thick.
Jupiter is the only planet whose barycenter with the Sun lies outside the Sun’s body. But only by 7% of the Sun’s radius.
solar system and the largest of all. (Order of the planets from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (the dwarf planet)).
Jupiter is the third brightest planet in the night sky after Earth’s moon and Venus.
Jupiter is also famous for its colored clouds that are red, brown, yellow and white. These clouds appear as strips on the planet and impart Jupiter a very distinctive look.
A special spacecraft – Juno – was sent by NASA in 2011 which reached its orbit around Jupiter on July 4th, 2016. It is expected that this spacecraft will send a lot of potential data about Jupiter back to Earth.
Jupiter also has the ability to alter the orbit of other planets such as Mars and that’s mainly because of its weight.
Jupiter is also nicknamed “vacuum cleaner of the solar system” because of its ability to attract other heavenly bodies into it due to its sheer mass and strong magnetic field.
Jupiter helps the earth by deflecting comets and asteroids away from it. Otherwise, these comets and asteroids could strike Earth causing potential damage.
Jupiter does not have a conducive environment for supporting any life form on it.
Scientists believe that Jupiter could have been a star had it been 80 times more massive than what it is today.
Jupiter has the maximum number of moons in the solar system – 67 to be precise. Fifty-three of these are named while the rest fourteen are yet to be named.
The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun (learn interesting facts about the Sun.)
Jupiter is at a distance of 5.2 AU from the Sun.
Jupiter is a windy planet. It experiences wind speeds of 192 mph to more than 400 mph.
Jupiter spins faster than any other planet in the solar system. It takes 10 hours to complete its rotation around the Sun. This means that the length of a day on Jupiter is only 10 hours as compared to the 24 hours on Earth.
Jupiter because of its immense size influences the space between 600,000 and 2 million miles towards the Sun.
Another interesting fact about Jupiter is that the planet’s equator rotates at a different speed than its polar regions. A day at its equator is around 9 hours 50 minutes long while that at its poles is 9 hours and 56 minutes long.
On 7th December 1995, the first samples of Jupiter’s atmosphere were collected by NASA’s Galileo orbiter. The probe penetrated 200 km into Jupiter’s atmosphere and lasted for 58 minutes before being destroyed.
Jupiter’s magnetic field extends up to 600,000 to 2 million miles towards the Sun. This immense magnetic field creates some spectacular aurorae at its poles.
Jupiter is the fifth farthest planet from the Sun and lies between Mars and Saturn
Jupiter is by far the largest planet in the solar system in size, mass, and volume.
Jupiter’s total mass is approximately one-thousand times smaller than the Sun’s mass.
The gas giant is named after the Roman god Jupiter.
Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the night sky after the Sun, the Moon, and Venus.
The gas giant is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium and is very similar in composition to the Sun.
Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Unlike Earth, which has a solid surface with a thin atmosphere above it, Jupiter just has an extremely thick atmosphere.
Helium accounts for only a quarter of Jupiter’s mass, and only a tenth of the planet’s total number of molecules.
It only takes Jupiter around 10 hours to complete a full rotation on its axis, 14 hrs faster than Earth.
Due to Jupiter’s fast rotational velocity that the planet has flattened out at the poles a little, and is bulging at its equator. So much so that Jupiter’s equatorial diameter is over 1 Earth’s Width wider than the pole to pole diameter. That’s why Jupiter looks visibly squashed.
Jupiter’s clouds are only 50 kilometers thick. The rest of Jupiter’s atmosphere is just a soup of hydrogen and helium and a few other elements and compounds.
In 1665, Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini discovered the Great Red Spot on Jupiter’s surface.
The Great Red spot on Jupiter’s surface is a persistent anticyclonic storm is located south of Jupiter’s equator.
Although it’s impossible for life to exist on Jupiter itself, one of its moons, Europa is a promising alternative to Earth. There’s evidence of a vast ocean just beneath Europa’s icy crust, where life could possibly be supported.
Jupiter’s gravitational field controls numerous Trojan asteroids in the Lagrangian points.
Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids are divided into Greek and Trojan “camps” to commemorate the Iliad. The first of these, 588 Achilles, was discovered by Max Wolf in 1906.
Jupiter orbits at an average velocity of 13.07 km/s. To give you some idea of how hugely fast tha
t speed is, you could travel the full width of the United States, all 3,941 km of it, in 5 minutes!
At aphelion, or when Jupiter is farthest from the Sun during its orbit, the giant planet is a staggering 816.62 million km from the sun. Or over 5.4 times the distance Earth is from the Sun.
At perihelion, or when a planet is closest to the Sun during its orbit, Jupiter is 740.52 million km from the Sun. Just under 5 times the distance Earth is from the Sun.
On average, Jupiter is 778.57 million km from the Sun.
Jupiter’s mass is roughly 1.8982×1027 kg. This number is almost completely beyond comprehension in everyday life. First of all, it’s roughly 317 times the mass of Earth.
The average density of Jupiter is 1,326 kg/m3. This is only slightly more than water which has a density of 997 kg/m3 .
Jupiter’s surface gravity is 24.79 m/s2 which is 2.5 times stronger than Earth’s gravity.
Jupiter’s escape velocity, the velocity an object, such as a rocket, has to be traveling at to completely escape the gravitation pull of a planet or other object, is 59.5 km/s. In comparison, Earth’s escape velocity is only 11.186 km/s.
The apparent magnitude, a measure of the brightness of an object in the sky, of Jupiter is −2.94. The lower the number the brighter the object. The human eye can only see objects with a magnitude lower than 6.5. For comparison, the Moon’s apparent magnitude is -12.6.
Other than hydrogen and helium, Jupiter also contains trace amounts of methane, ammonia, hydrogen deuteride, ethane, and water.
Jupiter has two-and-a-half times the mass of all the other planets in the Solar System combined.
Jupiter has been known to ancient civilizations since well before recorded history as it can easily be seen by the naked eye.
On a very dark night on Earth, the light reflected from Jupiter is bright enough to cast shadows.
Jupiter’s outer atmosphere is separated into multiple cloud bands at different latitudes around the equator. Many of which move slower or faster compared to neighboring bands. This results in extreme turbulence and storms along different band’s edges.
On December 4, 1973, Pioneer 10, a NASA spacecraft, became the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter.
The Pioneer 10 spacecraft’s closest approach to Jupiter was at a distance of 130,000 million kilometers.
Voyager 1, a NASA space probe, encounter Jupiter on March 5, 1979.
Its closest approach to Jupiter Voyager 1 was at a distance of 280,000 kilometers from the planet’s surface.
Voyager 2, another NASA space probe that was part of the voyager program, made it closes approach with Jupiter at 22:29 UT on July 9, 1979. 4 months after Voyager 1’s closes approach.
On Voyager 2’s closest approach it came within 570,000 km of Jupiter’s surface. some 190,000 km further away than Voyager 1’s approach.
At time of writing, NASA’s Juno probe was the latest probe to visit the planet. It entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
By mass, roughly 71% of Jupiter is hydrogen.
Jupitar is almost exactly 10 times less wide than the sun. The Sun is 1.3927 million km wide and Jupiter is 139,820 km wide.
Jupiter’s mass is about 1/1000th the mass of the Sun.
Jupitar would only need 30% extra mass to become a small, non fusion produicing red dwarf star.
Jupiter would need 75 times its current mass to be able to create and sustain fusion reactions.
When Jupiter first formed it was about twice as wide as it is today because it was so much hotter. As jupiter aged, so to did it cool, and it shrank as a result of this heat loss. Jupiter is still cooling and shrinking today at a rate of about 2 cm every year.

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