The Solar System #6: Jupiter
Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. It’s so big that astronomers and exoplanet scientists use it as a unit of measurement. 1 Jupiter mass is equal to 1.898 x 1027 kg. It’s used to describe the masses of things like brown dwarfs and other gas giants.
But really, I cannot stress enough that Jupiter is big. Like, mind-blowing big. If you added the masses of ALL of the other planets together, Jupiter would still tip the scales in its favour. It’s SO BIG that it has an enormous gravitational field that, lucky for us, pulls COMETS towards it so it can EAT THEM.
Basically, Jupiter is a giant comet-eater. It’s like a terrestrial goal-keeper.
Jupiter’s most well known feature is probably the 350-year-old storm called the “Great Red Spot” although I feel like if you were caught up in it somehow “this is Great” would be the last thing on your mind. The spot is SO BIG it can fit three Earths across it.
Apart from the spot, Jupiter has a weather system that would smell like our cleaning cupboard here at Science Space. Juno, the probe that flew by and then into the planet early last year, discovered Ammonia clouds all over the surface but also deeper into the gas giant itself. This apparently suggests that it RAINS ammonia.
~~ A BRIEF SUMMARY OF HELLISH WEATHER ON OTHER SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS~~
On the Sun it rains plasma
Sulphuric acid rain falls on Venus
Jupiter has the delightful ammonia cycle
Some believe it rains diamonds on Saturn. Sounds great but this guy would disagree:
(5 - the numbers stuffed up… ergh) And finally, last but by no means least, it rains FARTS on Titan (liquid methane… but let’s be honest it’s farts).
Anyway back to Jupiter
Jupiter is so massive that it’s essentially crushed its own core into a small, epically dense ball of metallic (get this) hydrogen. It’s basically just a bunch of protons and electrons packed into a tiny (well… tiny in comparison with the planet) space. Insane.
Juno also revealed a few other cool things about the Gas Giant - first it has blue Aurora at the poles that are, quite frankly, stunning! Seriously - look up a video of them. They’re amazing.
We also think, based on Juno data, that the solid hydrogen core is very slowly being eroded away. It’s like a berocca tablet in water. This is apparently evidence backing up the discovery of a few SUPER large exoplanets that don’t appear to have a core at all! Jupiter’s so big it’s kind of closing in on itself.
Jupiter isn’t the only thing in that area of space getting the attention for being a “big” thing. It’s also home to the biggest moon in our solar system; Ganymede. It’s also home to the most volcanically-active moon; Io. Io’s so active that it has a similar amount of volcanoes to Earth packed into 1/12 the area!
Oh and just so you know, Jupiter is a greedy planet - it’s got the most moons of any planet known (which makes sense considering its gravitational pull I suppose - it’s still greedy though). It’s got a whopping 67 of them. Who needs that many?
Tomorrow we look at my favourite: Saturn!
Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. The work presented here was written by me as a part of a larger project spear-headed by my colleague Amanda Kruger.
