jupiter

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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 by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2(Gallant). There is currently a spacecraft named Galileo that is currently in orbit around Jupiter and is sending data for the next two years. In Dec 7, 1995, Galileo probe entered the atmosphere at a rate of 106,000 mph and survived. Also in the upcoming years a probe will go around the moon Europa. We will be able to see if there is actually an ocean in that moon (National Geographic Jan 2000). Many scientist did not believe that it would make do to the gravity force which is 228 times that of Earth. Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are known as the gas planet they do not have a solid surface. Jupiter is made up of 90% hydrogen and 10% helium(Gallant). This is very close to the composition of the primor...

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