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Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, is 318 times larger
than Earth.
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Jupiter is the fourth brightest object to be seen in the sky.
Occassionally Mars will appear to be brighter than Jupiter in the
Earth's sky.
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Jupiter spins faster on its axis than any other planet in our solar
system. One day on Jupiter is 9.8 Earth hours
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Jupiter is a gas planet, composed largely of hydrogen (89%) and helium
(11%), with traces of methane, water vapor, and ammonia. The gas gets
denser with depth turning into liquid toward the center. The tops of
the gas clouds in the atmosphere make up the colorful texture on
Jupiter.
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The Great Red Spot is a high pressure region with clouds, moving in a
counter-clockwise direction, thought to contain red phosphorus. The
cloud tops in the Spot are higher than the surrounding clouds. The
Great Red Spot is about 12,000 by 25,000 km.
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Like Saturn, Jupiter has rings, though they are much smaller, fainter,
and darker. Jupiter's rings were discovered by the Voyager 1 in 1979.
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In 1610, Galileo discovered the four major satellites that orbit
Jupiter, with his small telescope. This set of moons, known as the
Galilean moons, are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto .
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The Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter in 1973, and
was followed by visits from Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and
Ulysses. The Galileo arrived in the Jovian system in late 1995 and will
remain in orbit there until 1997 (two years).
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Jupiter, sometimes called Jove, was the King of the gods in Roman
mythology and the son of Saturn.
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