Jupiter

[frame src=”http://www.tedzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/nineplanets.jpg” width=”600″ height=”237″ style=”2″ title=”photo showing the nine planets in our solar system”]

[frame src=”http://www.tedzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jupiter.jpg” align=”right” style=”2″ linkstyle=”pp” linksto=”http://www.tedzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jupiter.jpg” title=”Jupiter”]Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in the Solar System. Jupiter is our solar system’s largest planet. And it creates both good and bad conditions for earthly life.

On the one hand, Jupiter’s powerful gravity prevented space rocks orbiting near it from coalescing into a planet, and that’s why our solar system has an asteroid belt. Today, Jupiter’s gravity continues to affect the asteroids – only now it nudges them toward the sun, where they have the possibility of colliding with Earth.

On the other hand, Jupiter’s gravity also protects us. Long-period comets enter the solar system from its outer reaches. Jupiter’s gravity slings most of these fast-moving ice balls out of the solar system before they can get close to Earth.

Jupiter was the King of the Gods, the ruler of Olympus and the patron of the Roman state. Zeus was the son of Cronus (Saturn). Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus).

Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973 and later by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Ulysses. The spacecraft Galileo orbited Jupiter for eight years. It is still regularly observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium, although helium only comprises about a tenth of the number of molecules. It may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other gas giants, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface.

Jupiter’s mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined—this is so massive that its barycenter with the Sun lies above the Sun’s surface at 1.068 solar radii from the Sun’s center.

[frame src=”http://www.tedzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jupiter-protector.jpg” align=”right” style=”2″ linkstyle=”pp” linksto=”http://www.tedzy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/jupiter-protector.jpg” title=”Jupiter protecting the Earth”]Three distinct layers of clouds are believed to exist consisting of ammonia ice, ammonium hydrosulfide and a mixture of ice and water. However, the preliminary results from the Galileo probe show only faint indications of clouds (one instrument seems to have detected the topmost layer while another may have seen the second). But the probe’s entry point (left) was unusual — Earth-based telescopic observations and more recent observations by the Galileo orbiter suggest that the probe entry site may well have been one of the warmest and least cloudy areas on Jupiter at that time.

Data from the Galileo atmospheric probe also indicate that there is much less water than expected. The expectation was that Jupiter’s atmosphere would contain about twice the amount of oxygen (combined with the abundant hydrogen to make water) as the Sun. But it now appears that the actual concentration much less than the Sun’s. Also surprising was the high temperature and density of the uppermost parts of the atmosphere.

The Great Red Spot (GRS) has been seen by Earthly observers for more than 300 years (its discovery is usually attributed to Cassini, or Robert Hooke in the 17th century). The GRS is an oval about 12,000 by 25,000 km, big enough to hold two Earths. Other smaller but similar spots have been known for decades. Infrared observations and the direction of its rotation indicate that the GRS is a high-pressure region whose cloud tops are significantly higher and colder than the surrounding regions. Similar structures have been seen on Saturn and Neptune. It is not known how such structures can persist for so long.

Jupiter radiates more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. The interior of Jupiter is hot: the core is probably about 20,000 K. The heat is generated by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism, the slow gravitational compression of the planet. (Jupiter does NOT produce energy by nuclear fusion as in the Sun; it is much too small and hence its interior is too cool to ignite nuclear reactions.) This interior heat probably causes convection deep within Jupiter’s liquid layers and is probably responsible for the complex motions we see in the cloud tops. Saturn and Neptune are similar to Jupiter in this respect, but oddly, Uranus is not.

Jupiter is just about as large in diameter as a gas planet can be. If more material were to be added, it would be compressed by gravity such that the overall radius would increase only slightly. A star can be larger only because of its internal (nuclear) heat source. (But Jupiter would have to be at least 80 times more massive to become a star.)

Anyways; to me Jupiter is number one planet in this Solar-System and my best one so far. To me, Jupiter is the main reason why there is life on Earth. If Jupiter didn’t exist Earth would have been totally different than it is now.

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