Jupiter
Jupiter is the 5th planet from the sun and is the largest. It is twice as large as all the other planets combined.
It is large enough to swallow Earth 1300 times over, yet it only weighs as much as 318 Earths. It is still the heaviest planet, though.
Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky. The first brightest object is the Sun, then the Moon, then Venus. Sometimes Mars is also brighter.
Jupiter (a.k.a Jove; Greek Zeus) was the king of the gods, ruler of Olympus and the patron of Roman State. Zeus was the son of Cronus (Saturn).
Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973. It was later visited by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Ulysses.
Jupiter is known as a “gas planet”. It is made up of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium. There are also traces of methane, water, ammonia and “rock”.
We still don't know a lot about Jupiter. The data from Galileo's atmospheric probe goes down only about 150km below the cloud tops.
Jupiter probably has a core made of rocky material. The weight of hydrogen bearing down on the core would create pressures tens of millions of times that at sea level on Earth.
Jupiter is five times further from the sun than we are on Earth.
More than half a billion kilometres beyond Jupiter is Saturn.
This page was created by Clara Hollins 8F1 2001
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