Planets

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System.

It is a gas giant with mass slightly less than one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all of the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian planets.

The planet was known by astronomers of ancient times and was associated with the mythology and religious beliefs of many cultures. The Romans named the planet after the Roman god Jupiter. When viewed from Earth, Jupiter can reach an apparent magnitude of −2.8, making it on average the third-brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus. (Mars can briefly exceed Jupiter's brightness at certain points in its orbit.)

Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium; it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements. Because of its rapid rotation, Jupiter's shape is that of an oblate spheroid (it possesses 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 the planet is a faint planetary ring system and a powerful magnetosphere. There are also at least 63 moons, including the four large moons called the Galilean moons that were first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these moons, has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury.

Source: Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter, http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/compchart.cfm

Standard Features

Average Orbital Distance

778,412,020 km

Perihelion

740,742,600 km

Aphelion

816,081,400 km

Equatorial Radius

71,492 km

Equatorial Circumference

449,197 km

Mass

1,898,700,000,000,000,000 million tonnes

Density

1.33 g/cm3

Surface Gravity

20.87 m/s2

Rotation Period

0.413 sidereal days

Orbital Period

11.8 sidereal years

Orbital Inclination

1.305 degrees

Atmosphere

Hydrogen, Helium

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