The Journey to the Center of Jupiter

The Journey to the Center of Jupiter

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System and the 5th planet from the Sun. It is a very unique and interesting planet. Its famous 'Red Spot' and raging gas storms give it a cool look. Jupiter is an outer planet and a gas giant. Most gas giants have many moons and are surrounded by a set of rings or a thin disk of small particles of ice and rock. Like all gas giants, Jupiter has a thick atmosphere made up of mostly hydrogen and helium. Jupiter is much larger than Earth. You can fit about 1,300 Earths into Jupiter. The great red spot is a storm larger than Earth, which is pretty incredible. Also, Jupiter reflects many shades of white, red, orange, brown, and yellow. The colors of Jupiter change with the storms and wind patterns in its atmosphere. Another fact is that of all the planets, Jupiter has the shortest day. It turns on its axis once every 9 hours and 55 minutes and it orbits the Sun once every 11.8 Earth years. The planet also has 50 official moons and 12 unofficial moons. Galileo discovered the four largest and most well known moons in 1610. Their names are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter as you can see is a very unique planet and is the largest and most complex out of all the planets in the solar system.

Jupiter’s atmosphere is very unique and complex. Its atmosphere is made up of hydrogen and helium. Small amounts of compounds such as methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water have also been found. It is the combination of these chemical compounds and elements that have helped to create the colorful layers of clouds as seen from earthbound telescopes. Jupiter’s atmosphere is the largest in the solar system and is shown by cool cloud patters and turbulen...

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...: a flat main ring, a bigger inner ring, and two wispy outer rings that are inside the orbit of Io. The rings are composed of very small, dark particles the size of smoke particles. They are made by dust being kicked up from the tiny innermost moons of Jupiter by impact on the moons. The Halo ring is a faint, wide ring, which is in the shape of a doughnut. It is about 22,800 wide and is about 20,000 km thick. It starts at 100,000 km from the center of Jupiter; the outer edge of the Halo goes into the Main ring. The Main ring is 6,400 km wide and less than 30 km thick. Adrastea and Metis, two small moons, orbit within the Main ring. The Gossamer ring is a very faint and wide ring. It is two rings, one embedded within the other. It is made up of very tiny particles. The rings around Jupiter had never been seen before Voyager 1 arrived in 1979. Jupiter’s rings