Jupiter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the planet. For the Roman god, see Jupiter (mythology). For other uses,
see Jupiter (disambiguation).
Jupiter

Full-disc view of Jupiter in natural color in April 2014[a]

Designations

Pronunciation

Adjectives

/duptr/[1]

Jovian

Orbital characteristics[5]

Epoch J2000

Aphelion

5.45492 AU (816.04 Gm)

Perihelion

4.95029 AU (740.55 Gm)

Semi-major axis

5.20260 AU(778.299 Gm)

Eccentricity

0.048498

Orbital period
11.8618 yr

4,332.59 d

10,475.8 Jovian solar days[2]

Synodic period
Average orbital speed
Mean anomaly

398.88 d[3]
13.07 km/s[3]
20.020

Inclination
1.303 to ecliptic

6.09 to Sun's equator

0.32 to invariable plane[4]

Longitude of ascending node
Argument of perihelion

Known satellites

100.464
273.867
67 (as of 2014)
Physical characteristics

Mean radius

69,9116 km[6][b]

Equatorial radius
71,4924 km[6][b]

11.209 Earths
Polar radius
66,85410 km[6][b]

10.517 Earths
Flattening

0.064870.00015

Surface area
6.14191010 km2[b][7]

121.9 Earths

Volume
1.43131015 km3[3][b]

1,321 Earths
Mass
1.89861027 kg[3]

317.8 Earths

1/1047 Sun[8]
Mean density

1.326 g/cm3[3][b]

Surface gravity

24.79 m/s2[3][b]
2.528 g

Escape velocity

59.5 km/s[3][b]

Sidereal rotation period

Equatorial rotation velocity

9.925 h[9] (9 h 55 m 30 s)
12.6 km/s
45300 km/h

Axial tilt

3.13 (to orbit)[3]

North poleright ascension

268.057
17h 52m 14s[6]

North poledeclination

64.496[6]

Albedo

0.343 (Bond)
0.52 (geom.)[3]
Surface temp. min mean
1 bar level

165 K (108 C)[3]

0.1 bar

112 K[3]

Apparent magnitude
Angular diameter

max

1.6 to 2.94[3]
29.8 to 50.1[3]
Atmosphere[3]

Surface pressure
Scale height

Composition by volume

20200 kPa[10](cloud layer)

27 km

by volume:

89.82.0%
10.22.0%
0.3%
0.026%
0.003%
0.0006%
0.0004%

hydrogen(H2)
helium (He)
methane(CH4)
ammonia(NH3)
hydrogen deuteride(HD)
ethane(C2H6)
water (H2O)

Ices:

ammonia (NH3)

water (H2O)

ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4SH)

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant planet with
a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two and a half times that of all the other planets in the
Solar System combined. Jupiter is a gas giant, along with Saturn. (Uranus and Neptune are ice
giants.) Jupiter was known to astronomers of ancient times. The Romans named it aftertheir
god Jupiter. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of 2.94, bright
enough for its reflected light to cast shadows, and making it on average the third-brightest object in
the night sky after theMoon and Venus.
[11]

[12]

[13]

Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass beinghelium, though helium
comprises only about a tenth of the number of molecules. It may also have a rocky core of heavier
elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Because of its
rapid rotation, the planet's shape is that of an oblate spheroid (it has a slight but noticeable bulge
around the equator). The outer atmosphere is visibly segregated into several bands at different
latitudes, resulting in turbulence and storms along their interacting boundaries. A prominent result is
the Great Red Spot, a giant storm that is known to have existed since at least the 17th century when
it was first seen by telescope. Surrounding Jupiter is a faintplanetary ring system and a
powerful magnetosphere. Jupiter has at least 67 moons, including the four large Galilean
moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a diameter
greater than that of the planet Mercury.
[14]

Jupiter has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the
early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by theGalileo orbiter. Jupiter was most recently
visited by a probe in late February 2007, when New Horizons used Jupiter's gravity to increase its
speed and bend its trajectory en route to Pluto. The next probe to visit the planet will beJuno, which
is expected to arrive in July 2016. Future targets for exploration in the Jupiter system include the
probable ice-covered liquid ocean of its moonEuropa.
Contents
[hide]

1Formation and migration

2Structure

2.1Composition

2.2Mass and size

2.3Internal structure

3Atmosphere
o

3.1Cloud layers

3.2Great Red Spot and other vortices

4Planetary rings

5Magnetosphere

6Orbit and rotation

7Observation

8Research and exploration

o

8.1Pre-telescopic research

8.2Ground-based telescope research

8.3Radiotelescope research

8.4Exploration with space probes

8.4.1Flyby missions

8.4.2Galileo mission

8.4.3Future probes

8.4.4Canceled missions
9Moons

9.1Galilean moons

9.2Classification

10Interaction with the Solar System

10.1Impacts

11Possibility of life

12Mythology

13See also

14Notes

15References

16Further reading

17External links

Formation and migration

Main article: Grand Tack Hypothesis
See also: Formation and evolution of the Solar System
Earth and its neighbor planets may have formed from fragments of planets after collisions with
Jupiter destroyed those super-Earths near the Sun. As Jupiter came toward the inner Solar System,
in what theorists call the Grand Tack Hypothesis, gravitational tugs and pulls occurred causing a
series of collisions between the super-Earths as their orbits began to overlap.
[15]

Astronomers have discovered nearly 500 planetary systems each with multiple planets, and typically
these systems include a few planets with masses several times greater than Earth's (super-Earths),
orbiting closer to their star than Mercury is to the Sun, and Jupiter-like gas giants are also often
found close to their star.
Jupiter moving out of the inner Solar System would have allowed the formation of inner planets,
including Earth.
[16]

Structure
Jupiter is composed primarily of gaseous and liquid matter. It is the largest of the four giant planets
in the Solar System and hence its largest planet. It has a diameter of 142,984 km (88,846 mi) at
its equator. The average density of Jupiter, 1.326 g/cm , is the second highest of the giant planets,
but lower than those of the four terrestrial planets.
3

Composition
Jupiter's upper atmosphere is composed of about 8892% hydrogen and 812% helium by percent
volume of gas molecules. Because a helium atom has about four times as much mass as a
hydrogen atom, the composition changes when described as the proportion of mass contributed by
different atoms. Thus, Jupiter's atmosphere is approximately 75% hydrogen and 24% helium by
mass, with the remaining one percent of the mass consisting of other elements. The interior contains
denser materials, such that the distribution is roughly 71% hydrogen, 24% helium and 5% other
elements by mass. The atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia,
and silicon-based compounds. There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen
sulfide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, and sulfur. The outermost layer of the atmosphere
contains crystals of frozen ammonia. Through infrared and ultraviolet measurements, trace
amounts of benzene and other hydrocarbons have also been found.
[17][18]

[19]

The atmospheric proportions of hydrogen and helium are close to the theoretical composition of the
primordial solar nebula. Neon in the upper atmosphere only consists of 20 parts per million by mass,
which is about a tenth as abundant as in the Sun. Helium is also depleted, to about 80% of the
Sun's helium composition. This depletion is a result of precipitation of these elements into the interior
of the planet.
[20]

[21]

Based on spectroscopy, Saturn is thought to be similar in composition to Jupiter, but the other giant
planets Uranus andNeptune have relatively much less hydrogen and helium.
[22]

Mass and size

Jupiter's diameter is one order of magnitude smaller (0.10045) than the Sun, and one order of magnitude larger (10.9733) than the Earth. The Great
Red Spot is roughly the same size as the Earth.

Jupiter's mass is 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combinedthis 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. Jupiter is much larger than Earth and considerably less dense: its volume is that of
about 1,321 Earths, but it is only 318 times as massive. Jupiter's radius is about 1/10 the radius of
the Sun, and its mass is 0.001 times the mass of the Sun, so the densities of the two bodies are
similar. A "Jupiter mass" (M or M ) is often used as a unit to describe masses of other objects,
particularly extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs. So, for example, the extrasolar planet HD 209458
b has a mass of 0.69 M , while Kappa Andromedae b has a mass of 12.8 M .
[3][23]

[24]

[25]

Jup

[26]

Theoretical models indicate that if Jupiter had much more mass than it does at present, it would
shrink. For small changes in mass, the radius would not change appreciably, and above about
500 M (1.6 Jupiter masses) the interior would become so much more compressed under the
increased pressure that its volume would decrease despite the increasing amount of matter. As a
result, Jupiter is thought to have about as large a diameter as a planet of its composition and
evolutionary history can achieve. The process of further shrinkage with increasing mass would
continue until appreciablestellar ignition is achieved as in high-mass brown dwarfs having around 50
Jupiter masses.
[27]

[27]

[28]

[29]

Although Jupiter would need to be about 75 times as massive to fuse hydrogen and become a star,
the smallest red dwarf is only about 30 percent larger in radius than Jupiter. Despite this, Jupiter
still radiates more heat than it receives from the Sun; the amount of heat produced inside it is similar
to the total solar radiation it receives. This additional heat is generated by the KelvinHelmholtz
mechanism through contraction. This process causes Jupiter to shrink by about 2 cm each year.
When it was first formed, Jupiter was much hotter and was about twice its current diameter.
[30][31]

[32]

[33]

[34]