Jupiter - 44 Interesting facts

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1. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun in the 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)). 

2. Jupiter is the third brightest planet in the night sky after Earth’s moon and Venus.

3. Jupiter mainly consists of Hydrogen, Helium and other liquid matter.

4. Jupiter, like other most planets, is not a well defined solid object. It mainly consists of gaseous matter.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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).

10. Jupiter has the strongest magnetic field in the solar system, except that of the Sun.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. Jupiter also has the ability to alter the orbit of other planets such as Mars and that’s mainly because of its weight.

15. 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.

16. Jupiter helps the earth by deflecting comets and asteroids away from it. Otherwise, these comets and asteroids could strike Earth causing potential damage.

17. Jupiter does not have a conducive environment for supporting any life form on it.

18. Scientists believe that Jupiter could have been a star had it been 80 times more massive than what it is today.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Ice vs Gas: Uranus and Neptune are ice giants while Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants.

22. 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.

23. Jupiter is 318 times heavier than earth.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. The composition of Jupiter is similar to that of the Sun (learn interesting facts about the Sun.)

27. Jupiter is at a distance of 5.2 AU from the Sun.

28. Jupiter is a windy planet. It experiences wind speeds of 192 mph to more than 400 mph.

29. 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.

30. One year on Jupiter is equal to 12 years on Earth.

31. Jupiter is named after Jupiter, the king of the Roman gods in mythology.

32. An astronaut weighing 100 pounds on earth would weigh 240 pounds on Jupiter.

33. Jupiter’s magnetic field is 16 to 54 times as powerful as that of the earth.

34. Jupiter because of its immense size influences the space between 600,000 and 2 million miles towards the Sun.

35. 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.

36. The length of each season on Jupiter is roughly three years.

37. 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.

38. Jupiter emits more heat that it receives from the Sun, almost four times of its intake.

39. The temperature on Jupiter ranges between minus 128 degree Celsius and minus 13 degree Celsius.

40. Jupiter has the largest ocean in the Solar System, an ocean made up of liquid hydrogen instead of water.

41. 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.

42. Europa — one of Jupiter’s moons — is one of the likeliest places to find life elsewhere in our solar system.

43. 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.

44. 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.

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