Jupitar

Jupitar is the solar systems largest planet. It’s mainly hydrogen and helium atmosphere resembles that of our Sun. Some scientists ever refer to the as a failed star, although it would need to be many times largest to have to become a sun! Distance from Sun: 483,682,810 miles (778,412,020 kilometers) Length of Year: 4,331 days Length of Day: 9 hrs 56 mins. “how far is Jupiter from Earth” can have a different answer every day of the year. The planets both travel in their elliptical orbits getting closer then farther apart. When Earth and Jupiter are at their closest to each other they are 628,743,036 million km apart. At their most distant from each other they are 928,081,020 million km apart. In astronomical units the distance varies from 4.2 AU to 6.2 AU.

Jupitar has 63 known moons, most less than six miles.(ten kilometers) in diameter. The four largest- IO, Ganymede, and Callisto were discovered by Galileo in Europa is a unique moon of Jupiter that has fascinated scientists for hundreds of years. Europa is named after the beautiful Phoenician princess who, according to Greek mythology. Its surface is among the brightest in the solar system, a consequence of sunlight reflecting off a relatively young icy crust. Its face is also among the smoothest, lacking the heavily cratered appearance characteristic of Callisto and Ganymede. Lines and cracks wrap the exterior as if a child had scribbled around it. Europa may be internally active, and its crust may have, or had in the past, liquid water which can harbor life. Europa IO is one of the most exotic places in the solar system. It is the most volcanic body known, with lava flows, lava lakes, and giant calderas covering its sulfurous landscape. It has billowing volcanic geysers spewing sulfurous plumes to over 500 kilometers high. Its mountains are much taller than those on Earth, reaching heights of 16 kilometers (52,000 feet). IO Jupiter’s moon Callisto is the second largest moon orbiting the planet. It is the third largest moon in the Solar System behind another Jovian moon, Ganymede, and Saturn’s moon Titan. It is 4,820 km across and orbits 1,880,000 km from the planet. It orbits Jupiter every 16.7 Earth days. Callisto has an average density of 1.83 g/cm 3, which leads scientists to believe that it is composed of equal parts silicate rock and various ices. Callisto Ganymede is the largest moon of Jupiter and is the largest in our solar system with a diameter of 5,262 km (3,280 miles). It was discovered by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei in Like Callisto, Ganymede is most likely composed of a rocky core with a water/ice mantle and a crust of rock and ice. Its low density of 1.94 gm/cm 3, indicates that the core takes up about 50% of the satellite's diameter. Ganymede's mantle is most likely composed of ice and silicates, and its crust is probably a thick layer of water ice. Ganymede

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot(GRS) is an atmospheric storm that has been raging in Jupiter’s southern Hemisphere for at least 400 years. Many believe that Giovanni Cassini was the first to observe it in the late 1600s, but scientists doubt that it had just formed at that time. About 100 years ago, the storm covered over 40,000 km of the surface. It is currently about one half of that size and seems to be shrinking. At the present rate that it is shrinking it could become circular by Scientists doubt that this will happen because of the distortion effect of neighboring jet streams. It is not known how long the spot will last, or whether the changes in size are a result of normal fluctuations

Upon discovery of the rings, a couple theories of their formation emerged. One was that perhaps passing dust from comets and meteorites were being collected by Jupiter's gravity. In 1979 the Voyager space craft made an amazing discover. With the persistence of a couple scientists, it's camera was turned at such an angle to catch a glimpse of the sun reflecting off a ring. Although every Jovian planet in our system has rings, none of Jupiter's could ever be seen from earth. It would later be found that Jupiter did not only have one ring but four