Jovian Planets Essay

Jupiter is the largest and the fastest spinning planet in our solar system. The storm on Jupiter known as the Great Red Spot could swallow up the entire Earth. Jupiter is made primarily of hydrogen and helium and has no solid surface. Its atmosphere resembles that of the sun. Stathopoulus (2000 – 2011), “ Sixteen moons have been identified, with Ganymede noted as the largest - it is bigger than both Mercury and Pluto” (Facts about Jupiter, para. 9).

Jupiter is a gas planet with a possible chance of a core. On the outside of Jupiter, what we can see, is its atmosphere. Jupiter’s atmosphere is layered. It contains hydrogen, helium (a

This may mean there is active cloud formation in those regions, producing fresh white clouds. The clouds in the reddish brown "belts" are deeper, covered by thick smog-like haze. A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. The atmosphere of Jupiter is 90 percent hydrogen. The remaining 10 percent is almost completely made up of helium, though there are small traces of other gases inside. The Great Red Spot is a giant, spinning storm in Jupiter's atmosphere. It is like a hurricane on

Galileo spacecraft first discovered the four largest moon of Jupiter, called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Ganymede and Callisto. Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System Atmosphere And Planetary Composition: Temperature Range: The cloud-tops average 120 K=153*C=-244*F. Atmosphere: Jupiter is a gaseous planet; it does not have a solid surface like the Earth does (but probably has a solid, rocky core 10 to 15 times the mass of the Earth). When we look at Jupiter, we are seeing icy clouds of gases moving at high speeds in the atmosphere. Jupiter's atmosphere is composed of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium.

They used radar/microwave radiometer aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which revealed a turbulent atmosphere that has many similarities with Jupiter than previously realized. The new observations reveal a calm and narrow equatorial belt surrounded by stormy bands just like on Jupiter. Although regions at higher latitudes did show a different character that is unique to Saturn. Recently generated global microwave maps of Saturn exposed detail of a mostly stable atmospheric environment. There were some unpredicted diversity, including arid, desert-like patches in Saturn's atmosphere.

In their determination, “Jupiter, being wet and hot, draws up evil vapors from the earth, and Mars, because it is immediately dry and hot, then ignites the vapors, and as a result there were lightnings, sparks, noxious vapors and fires throughout the air.”4

Jupiter was the last planet on this part of the mission and I was ready to go home. We have been here three years and it will take a year to get home. Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It is made up of gas, and it has a big red spot

Jupiter, being the fifth and largest planet from the sun, is huge. In fact, it is approximately a thousand times the size of our home planet. Alongside Neptune, Saturn and Uranus, it is a gas giant. hydrogen and helium are the main components. Jupiter's surface appears striped due to the color swirls. wind on the planet gets up twice as strong as a hurricane on earth.

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter is the only planet that is larger. The gas giant is 72 thousand miles in diameter, almost ten times the size of Earth. In spite of its huge size, though, Saturn weighs very little. It is a very light gas planet. Saturn is the least dense planet in the solar system-- so light, in fact, that it would float in water. This planet is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium, like Jupiter, but it is much less dense. The combination of its light weight and fast rotation causes Saturn to spread out, or oblate, its center. Since Saturn is a gas planet, it does not have a solid surface. Spacecraft are unable to land on this type of surface. The clouds that are seen when looking at Saturn are just the top layer of a very deep layer that covers a center of liquid hydrogen. The clouds are blown by constant winds that reach speeds up to one thousand miles per hour at the equator of the planet (“Great Space Place”).

Humans have longed to believe in extrasolar planets, as surely there have to be planets elsewhere in the universe. Claims of supposedly discovered extrasolar planets can be dated back to 1855 when Captain S. W. Jacobs from the Madras observatory, claimed that he had discovered a planet orbiting a binary system (Jacobs 1855), all the way up until 1991 when a team of astronomers announced then retracted the alleged discovery of an extrasolar planet around a pulsar star (Lyne and Bailes 1992). Planets are extremely hard to detect as they are a very faint light source and the light from its parent star is much brighter and essentially blocks out light from a planet (Winters 1996). It was not until 1992 when the first exoplanets were confirmed

Uncovering the mysteries of Jupiter is a crucial step for a greater understanding of our Solar System. Being the massive planet that it is, this mysterious planet may hold many answers to how our the Solar System formed and evolved. The understanding of the origins of the universe includes answers even to the formation of Earth itself. Many believe that the research of Jupiter will lead to discoveries on planet formation and the role of giant planets on the formation f stars and other smaller bodies. Mysteries of Jupiter include its composition, what is under its clouds, what is in its core and its magnetic field. Research on the amount of water in the planet will tell us about the

our solar system, but they are unimportant compared to the nine major planets. In this paper I will discuss the planets and how they are each unique.

Since ancient times, the universe had captivated people’s imagination and curiosity. With the limitation on technology, early sky watchers were only capable of classifying objects they observed as either a star or a planet. During the twentieth century, with advancement in telescopes to see further into space with more accurate details, scientists were able to find numerous stars and planet like objects within the solar system. Scientists had no trouble classifying objects such as Uranus and Neptune as planets. However, the real trouble came when they discovered a planetary object called Ceres. Objects like Ceres and Pluto behaved similarly to regular planets. Because of the limitations on the technology at the time, it was very difficult

Humans live on a small planet in a tiny part of a vast universe. This part of the universe is called the solar system, and is dominated by a single brilliant star-the sun. The solar system is the earth’s neighbourhood and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are the Earth’s neighbours. They all have the same stars in the sky and orbit the same sun.

The knowledge of what the inner core is made up is still and will remain unknown until we can create a satellite that can make into the atmosphere of Jupiter and the other gas planets. Jupiter's atmosphere was also found to be quite turbulent. It is also know that Jupiter spins faster than any other planet. This indicates that Jupiter's winds are driven in large part by its internal heat rather than from solar input as on Earth. The vivid colors seen in Jupiter's clouds are probably the result of subtle chemical reactions of the trace elements in Jupiter's atmosphere, perhaps involving sulfur whose compounds take on a wide variety of colors, but the details are unknown. The colors correlate with the cloud's altitude: blue lowest, followed by browns and whites, with reds highest. Sometimes we see the lower layers through holes in the upper ones. Then we have the Great Red Spot that everyone can identify as Jupiter. This reddish color of the “Great Red Spot” is a puzzle to scientist, but several chemicals, including phosphorus, have been proposed as a reason. In fact, the color and mechanisms driving the appearance of the entire atmosphere are still not well understood. This spot has been seen by Earthly observers for more than 300 years. Robert Hooke discovered it in the 17th century. The GRS is an oval about 12,000 by 25,000 km, big enough to hold two Earths. Another interesting feature about Jupiter is that it