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Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Its diameter of 88,846 miles is larger than Saturn's 74,898 mile diameter. Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sunMercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars

are closer to the sun in that order. Farther away are Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto also in that order. Its distance from the sun is 483,682,810 miles compared to 92,955,820 million miles for Earth.

There are many more moons than the twelve we thought Jupiter had in the 1960s. A recent estimate

was there are 63 moons revolving aroung Jupiter. Jupiter takes only ten hours to spin on its axis compared to twenty-four for the Earth.
The escape velocity is 133,200 miles per hour compared to 25,009 miles per hour for Earth. Jupiter's atmosphere is about 86% hydrogen and 14% helium with

traces of other gases.

There are four planet-sized moons circling JupiterGanymede, Europa, Io, and Callisto, also known as the Galilean Satellites because they were first seen by Galileo when he invented the telescope in 1610.

Io is volcanically active, Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, Europa has a frozen crust, and Callisto. Twenty-three new moons were discovered in 2003. The outer moons of Jupiter might be asteroids swept in by Jupiter's atmosphere. Io's atmosphere has sulphur dioxide, Europa oxygen, Ganymede oxygen, and Callisto carbon dioxide. The names of some of the other moons are

Almalthea, Himalia, Elara, Pasiphae, Sinope, lysithea, Carme, Ananke, Leda, Thebe, Adrastea, Metis, and

S/2000 J11.

Pioneer 10 was the first man-made satellite to take pictures of Jupiter on December 3, 1973. It was designed to study the magnetic fields, solar wind, dust particles, and atmosphere of Jupiter and some of its satellites. Pioneer 11, one year later on December 4, 1974, studied the magnetic fields, solar wind, dust particles, radio waves, the higher layers of Jupiter's atmosphere, and the surfaces of some of its moons. Some of Pioneer's instruments included Helium Vector Magnetometer, Charged Particle Instrument, Cosmic Ray Telescope, Meteroid Detector, AsteroidMeteoroid Experiment, and an Ultraviolet Photometer. Voyager 1 was the first to send back detailed images of the moons of Jupiter.

It was launced on September 5, 1977. In the future, Juno and Europa Astrobiology Lander will study

Jupiter. Juno is planned to arrive in 2011, studying the magnetic field, gravity field, and atmospheric

structure of Jupiter.
The Hubble Space Telescope takes many pictures of Jupiter from time to time.

It circles the Earth on a satellite designed to hold the Hubble Telescope. A "Jupiter Multi Probes Mission" is being worked on that will study Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields, atmosphere,

and gross dynamic and structural properties. It is still on the drawing boardno launch date is set yet.

Learn more about this author, Steven Mars.
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