Jupiter

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Jupiter
Number of Sattelites	80 Moons
Atmospheric Makeup	89.8% hydrogen 10.2% helium
Distance from Sun	483.6 million miles
Diameter	89,365 miles 142,894 kilometers
Axial tilt	3.13 degrees
Orbit	12 Earthen years
Position in Solar System	Fifth planet from Sun
Surface Features	Gaseous atmosphere with several storms
Albedo	(geometric) 0.52 (bond) 0.343
Aphelion	510.33 million miles
Perihelion	462.86 million miles
Mass of Planet	1.89 x 10^27 kg
Escape Velocity	60 kilometers/seconds

Jupiter is the largest of the gas giants, and the largest of all of the planets in the Solar System. It is the fifth planet from the Sun. Mars and itself are the two planets that border the Asteroid belt. Jupiter has been known since prehistoric times. It also has rings but they're very hard to see.

FormationEdit

Jupiter was formed by a nebula that continued to rotate and then clumped together due to a force called accretion. Because of its distance from the Sun, it did not have enough accretion to become a rocky planet. This Was The First Planet To Form.

AtmosphereEdit

See also: Atmosphere of Jupiter

Jupiter's temperature above the clouds can reach -160 degrees Fahrenheit. When water precipitates, everything on Jupiter crystallizes. The surface temperature varies on the climate of the location on a point of Jupiter. Jupiter has hundreds of storms that ravage through the atmosphere. The main one being the Great Red Spot. This storm has been lasting for three hundred years. The atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen.

Another storm was the Oval BA storm, also known as Red Spot Jr., is a storm similar to that of the Great Red Spot, hence the nickname. This storm formed several decades ago, and is smaller than the Red Spot, being only about 0.9 Earths in diameter, nearly three times smaller than the Great Red Spot. This storm is located in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter, where it was formed. Three smaller storms collided and formed this storm, only for them to fully conjoin in early 2000.

Greatest of Them AllEdit

Jupiter rotates on its axis the fastest in the solar system. Jupiter takes only ten hours to rotate once on its axis. Jupiter is also the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter has the most number of moons. Jupiter also is home to the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede.

Impact by Shoemaker-Levy 9Edit

Main Link: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

D/1993 F2, or Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, is a short-period comet that began orbiting Jupiter around the early 1980's. On July 16, 1994, the first comet impacted on 8:13 pm. Before this, the comet split into 21 pieces, and the first one to hit was designated as "fragment A". The other ones collided at different times after the fact. To the right is the picture of the comet once it split into its fragments before it collided into Jupiter.

Flyby MissionsEdit

The flyby missions of Jupiter began in the year of 1973 with, the most notable spacecraft, Pioneer 10, making its first flyby in December of 1973. The last flyby mission was made by New Horizons, which came within two million miles of Jupiter. The farthest approach was made by the second Ulysses mission, which came within one hundred twenty million miles of the planet. The closest approach of of them all was Pioneer 11, which came with thirty thousand kilometers of the planet.

Below is a chart of the spacecrafts, their closest approaches, in kilometers, and the date of their closest approaches.

PicturesEdit

This is a dwarf moon.

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A computer-generated shows the Galileo orbiter heads to Io from Jupiter.

Marduk hypothetical planet near the Jupiter

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