Sunday, June 24, 2018

Jupiter.

The Earth would fit inside Jupiter 1324 times! It may not appear to be that much bigger than Earth, but, the way someone described it to me was: Because of the mass of Jupiter, it would be like a balloon, the planet would stretch , just like a balloon. Just like a balloon stretching to hold more water or anything else you put in it, Jupiter would, THEORETICALLY, stretch whenever you put something inside of it. It would stretch out enough to where All the other planets, including Pluto, would fit inside of it!
The famous, Great Red Spot is about Three times bigger than Earth.
It is a large storm that's been going on for over 300 years. It is currently, slowly shrinking. It spins counterclockwise at about 225 MPH (360 KPH). It is comparable to a hurricane.
Jupiter would fit inside the Sun 9 times.
It has a faint ring system. Scientists did not know about the rings until the Voyager Spacecraft got there. Voyager showed the rings for the first time. The rings are too faint to be seen with a Telescope. In fact, I have a really powerful Telescope and I can't see the ring with it. University of Central Florida in Cocoa, FL has the second largest Telescope in the state of FL and they can't see it with that scope.
It has, as of now, 69 confirmed Moons. Probably, more to be found.
Looking through my Telescope, I can see the color bands on the planet and Six of it largest Moons.
Since, Galileo invented his own Telescope and looked at Jupiter, and discovered 4 of these same Moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede & Callisto), they are called: Galileo Moons. Those are Jupiter's largest moons. The rest are too small to see from Earth.
(Unfortunately, someone else invented the Telescope, just a short period of time before Galileo invented his telescope. So, he can't claim credit for inventing it.)
There are some very violent storms on Jupiter. Mostly inside the planet. Lightning on this planet is much more powerful than what we experience here on Earth. Scientists believe that it rains Diamonds inside of Jupiter. Because of the heat and pressure inside of the giant ball of Gas. But, they can't prove it.
The composition of the planet is mostly: Hydrogen, Helium and Ammonia. It's believed to have a rocky and metallic core.
Since the planet spins so fast, it completes one rotation in 9.8 Earth hours.
The rapid rotation causes Jupiter to bulge at the Equator. The diameter at the Equator is: 88,846 Miles (142,948 K).
The diameter at the poles is: 83,082 Miles (133,708 K). The Scientific name for this shape is: An Oblate Spheroid.
Jupiter is a Brown Dwarf. A failed star. Since it is made up of the same elements as most stars. However, it would have to be 75 times more massive to cause nuclear fusion of Hydrogen and turn into a star.
The color bands around Jupiter are created by strong 400 MPH (640 K) winds flowing East to West in the planets upper atmosphere.
Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, larger than any other planets. It is also the strongest magnetic field in our Solar System. It's almost 20,000 times strong than the one here on Earth! It is more than 1,000 times the lethal dose of radiation for a human. This magnetic field damages every spacecraft that goes near it, even if it is heavily shielded. The magnetic field extends out between 600,000 - 2 Million Miles (1 Million - 3 Million  K) towards the Sun and forms a tail which extends over 600 Million Miles (1 Billion K) behind the planet.
At it's furthest point from the Sun Jupiter is 507.04 Million Miles away.
When it's closest to the Sun it's 460.24 Million Miles away.
It orbits the Sun at a speed of 29,205 MPH. Completing one rotation around the Sun in 11.86 Earth years.
The distance from Jupiter to Saturn depends on where they are in orbit. When they are on the same side of the Sun and at their closest point, they are approximately 5 Astronomical Units (AU) away from each other.
When they are on opposite sides of the Sun, they are about 15 AU away from each other.
(One AU is the average distance between the Sun and Earth. 93 Million Miles or 149,668,992 K).
Depending on where the Earth and Jupiter are in their orbits, Jupiter is between 4.2 and 6.2 AU away from Earth.
We are lucky to have a planet the size of Jupiter in our Solar System, because, being so big, it has a lot of gravity. It attracts a lot of Metiors and other things to it. So, rather than hitting Earth or the other planets, a lot of them hit Jupiter instead.
Imagine what might have happened if Shoemaker-Levy would of hit Earth.
The SL comet had been captured by Jupiter's gravity about 20 or 30 years before it broke into several large pieces and hit Jupiter in July of 1994. The fragments of the comet got too close to the planet on July 16, 1994. The first impact created a fireball larger than Earth! A total of 21 impacts were observed over the next six days. The largest one created a dark spot more than 7,456 Miles (12,000 K) across. The explosion it created was 6 Million Megatons of TNT. That's 600 times the worlds entire known nuclear arsenal at that time, according to: www.americaspace.com.
A comet or meteor that size hitting Earth would quickly put an end to all life on Earth! In fact, most Scientists believe that it was a large meteor that crashed into Earth 65,000,000 years ago that killed off the Dinosaurs.

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