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jupiter Essay

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Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest mass object in the solar system of all the other planets. Jupiter is twice the size of all the other planets combined. It is as 318 times the sizes of earth. The distance that Jupiter orbits the sun is 778,330,000 km (Gallant pp154). The diameter is 142,984 km and the mass that it has is 1.900e27 kg. Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky after the Sun, the Moon and Venus. Mars is some times brighter. Galileo discovered Jupiter in 1610(Gallant); another interesting fact is that Jupiter has 4 large moons. Which are known as the Galilean moons. They were named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The first mission that went to Jupiter was Pioneer 10 in 1973 and later …show more content…

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

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