Facts About Jupiter


Now I want talk about Jupiter. Jupiter is the 5th planet in the solar system. Jupiter is 143,000 kilometers in diameter, making it 11 times the size of Earth. Jupiter is twice as heavy as all the other planets being put together (Makes sense for its size!). Jupiter’s orbit is between 740.9 and 815.7 million kilometers from the Sun. It takes 11.86 years to orbit the sun and its temperatures can plunge to -150° C.

Jupiter is mainly made of Hydrogen and Helium. In the core the pressure is so immense that the hydrogen behaves like a metal. Jupiter spins in less than ten hours, it's the 2nd fastest rotating planet. That means the surface is moving approximately at 50,000 km/h. Jupiter has a strong magnetic field (of course) about ten times stronger than earth.

Jupiter has a great red spot that is a hurricane three times bigger than earth. The scientist Robert Hooke first spotted it in 1644. There might be something down there that is causing the hurricanes and I think that scientists need to plan a mission to see underneath Jupiter's atmosphere and find out what is causing the Great Red Spot.

Jupiter has four Galilean Moons, first seen by Galileo. Ganymede is the biggest with a diameter of 5262 km, Callisto is the 2nd biggest with a diameter of 4806 km, Io is the 3rd biggest with a diameter of 3642 km, and finally, the smallest of the Galileans, Europa with a diameter of 3138 km. NASA is actually planning to send spacecraft to explore Europa, to see what is underneath its thick layer of ice surface.

Thank you! - Nat

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